Twitter and unfair dismissal

Twitter and unfair dismissal

Interesting reading from the Appeal Tribunal (EAT) as they overturn a rather inexplicable unfair dismissal decision by a tribunal.

In this case, the employee was the manager in charge of limiting risk for the 100 stores owned by this employer. He set up a Twitter feed that could be seen by both staff and customers and was promptly “followed” by 65 stores. Soon after, the manager began sending offensive tweets which are probably not appropriate for repeating here, but can be read for yourself at paragraph 13 of the judgement (link below).

The manager was dismissed and had the front to make a claim for unfair dismissal. We are surprised to note that the tribunal found this to be unfair. Their reasoning was that it was a private Twitter account.

The Appeal Tribunal overturned this saying that it did not matter that it was a private Twitter account, the comments (that really were quite offensive) could and were being seen by staff and customers alike. That should be enough.

Enjoy reading the case at the following link:
http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2014/0188_14_0311.html

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