Email policy breach results in dismissal

AN employee’s recent dalliance with emails on his office computer has ended with his dismissal.

The employee commenced work with the company in June 2001 and on his first day was presented with the company’s IT policy that acknowledged ‘employees should be made aware that violations of this policy might subject an individual to disciplinary action’ and that unacceptable uses included to ‘download, display or transmit sexually explicit materials’.

This policy was accepted and signed by the employee.

During an audit of its computer system, the company became aware that the system was being hampered by the transmission of large documents, including sexually explicit emails.

After investigation, the documents were traced back to the employee’s computer and following a meeting between the employee and two directors of the company, the employee was summarily dismissed in November 2002 and escorted out of the building.

The employer argued before the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission that it was justified in summarily dismissing the employee as it was not in a situation where there was only one instance involving perhaps an error of judgement but a continual sequence of emails being received and dispatched over a period of time.

Some of the emails had been sent to clients of the employer.

The employee’s evidence was that he saw nothing wrong or harmful about engaging in these emails or that his actions adversely affected the company’s business reputation.

He said that he restricted distribution of them to those persons of a ‘like mind’.

Some of the people who received his emails also gave evidence that they were not offended by the images.

The employee also argued that he was singled out unfairly as he alleged his work colleagues were also involved in a similar activity.

The commission, however, accepted the employer’s evidence that it undertook an extensive investigation of the computer systems and found no evidence of other employees breaching the policy.

In dismissing the employee’s claim, the commission found that there were aspects of the dismissal procedure that could have been handled in a better and fairer manner.

However, the material the employee forwarded to clients of the respondent clearly had the potential to offend.

It was a breach of the company’s policy and the employer had a right to prohibit the misue of its computer facilities to prevent damage to its reputation and business.

The commission found that the employer could rightly hold the view that it could no longer trust the employee in the circumstances and was therefore justified in taking immediate steps to dismiss him.

Carla Paratore, solicitor - 9228 6940

Ian Curlewis, partner - 9288 6756

Liquor store national competition debate

THE ongoing controversy regarding the regulation and control of liquor in the context of the national competition policy has received further wide publicity recently.

The New South Wales Government  had demanded that the Prime Minister ‘rein in’ the National Competition Council in the push to have liquor sold from convenience stores and petrol stations.

In Western Australia for liquor to be sold from these types of outlets it is necessary to make application to the licensing authority for a liquor store licence.

The WA Liquor Licensing Act was amended some years ago to make it extremely difficult for convenience stores to sell liquor products unless it could be demonstrated that takeaway liquor was not available in the surrounding area at all or only available with substantial inconvenience or difficulty.

In the case of service stations, other than in isolated country situations, amendments to the act place a total embargo on such sites being licensed for community welfare reasons.

The WA liquor industry is going through a prolonged period of rationalisation with the ongoing expansion of the two national chains.

Consequently, packaged liquor market share is being lost by the remaining independent liquor stores as well as the many hotels and taverns that rely on take away sales.

The WA Government, like the NSW Government, has lost revenue due to a reluctance to deregulate the liquor law.

The pressure continues to mount.

All sections of the industry await the outcome with anticipation.

In the meanwhile arguably WA consumers already have plenty of opportunity to purchase take away liquor.

Dan Mossenson, chairman of partners

9288 6769