Three workers at Hewlett Packard’s plant in Renfrewshire, Scotland,
who were fired after sending or receiving e-mails of a sexual
nature, have won a claim of unfair dismissal, according to local
newspaper reports.
The tribunal found that HP had not been consistent in its
response to abuse of the company's e-mail system, according to the
Metro, Daily Record and Evening Times coverage.
Lynsey Rankin, Richard Reid and Brian Graham were three of 100
people who had been caught under a company investigation into
e-mail abuse. They were sacked, but others who had sent e-mails
with a similar or more explicit content, were not.
According to the Daily Record, manager Robert Wilson had sent
e-mails with sexual content (of a nature not disclosed in the
reports) to Brian Graham. But Wilson was not punished because his
mailbox was empty at the time of the investigation.
The employment tribunal ruled that the computer giant's
inconsistent approach to enforcing its e-mail abuse policy meant
that the employees had been unfairly dismissed.
Reid and Graham have accordingly been awarded a full year's pay
in compensation, while Rankin is set to receive nine months'
pay.
Robyn McIlroy, an employment law specialist with Masons, the
firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, says the case highlights not just the need
for an e-mail and internet policy, but also the need to enforce it
consistently.
McIlroy commented: "This defence - disparity of treatment,
inconsistency of sanction - is one which employees
increasingly are seeking to rely on in such cases. This might be in
fact one of the few defences open to employees, where an employer
has a clear policy prohibiting the circulation of inappropriate
e-mail, and can show that the employees concerned were aware of the
potential sanctions for breach of the policy."
"It is essential, therefore, that such policies and sanctions
are consistently applied and enforced - albeit that this will
always depend on the individual facts and circumstances of every
case," she said.
