By Wendy Shore on August 08, 2019

Employment law moves towards recommending education not sacking over workplace porn

A recent Brisbane Times article highlighted how technologies such as Image Analyzer are increasingly being used to educate rather than simply be used as the basis to dismiss users. Image Analyzer as a company has long advocated that their technology be used to monitor email traffic, highlight areas of concern and then to use those findings to change behaviour. It is good to see that employment law in many countries is now reflecting this more proactive approach.

Porn not an automatic sacking offence: tribunal

Sending porn through the work email system is not an automatic sacking offence, Australia’s employers have been warned.

The nation’s industrial tribunal says ”special rules” do not apply to email porn peddlers in the workplace and the same unfair dismissal laws apply as with other forms of misbehaviour.

The full bench of Fair Work Australia has found that three Victorian postal workers were ”harshly” dismissed after being caught using the Australia Post email system to distribute sexually explicit material around their workplace. Fair Work will hold a hearing behind closed doors this month to decide if the three should get their jobs back.

One of the three commissioners hearing the case dissented from his colleagues and backed Australia Post’s actions in sacking the men.

The men, who worked at AustraliaPost’s Dandenong Letter Centre, were among 40 workers disciplined by the postal authorities over online activities in 2010.

The three workers, who have secured a non-publication order on their names, were sacked after an investigation found a large number of workers involved in accessing, storing and distributing pornographic material, some of it ”hardcore”, around the workplace.

 

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Published by Wendy Shore August 8, 2019