CANBERRA, Australia – Two postal workers will be reinstated after Australia’s Federal Court ruled employees may not be dismissed automatically for emailing pornography at work.
Australia Post dismissed both male employees in 2010 after discovering they used their work accounts to send porn to co-workers. At the time, the postal service maintained “special rules” that laid out a zero-tolerance policy for accessing or sharing explicit materials online.
The men — who had served the postal service for 11 and 17 years — sought redress from the country’s Fair Work Commission, which agreed the dismissals were unfair. Australia Post appealed the decision, saying the agency had “lost faith” in the long-term employees.
On Wednesday, the appellate court upheld the commission’s decision.
“Accessing, sending or receiving and storing pornography is not a separate species of misconduct to which special rules apply,” the court noted. “It is a form of misconduct to which the same general principles apply, as apply in all unfair dismissal matters involving reliance on misconduct.”
A lawyer for the fired workers indicated the court’s decision should not be considered a blanket endorsement of porn in the workplace. Instead, the ruling put employers on notice that employment regulations must be scrupulously enforced if they are to be considered valid.
“A culture had arisen [at Australia Post] in which there was an extraordinary amount of inappropriate email traffic involving a large number of employees, which occurred over an extended period of time,” he told The Age. “Managers were aware of it and in some cases participated in it and did not take action to enforce the policy … but then all of a sudden these long-standing employees were dismissed without warning for something that had been tolerated.”
The plaintiffs in the case were among 40 Australia Post employees disciplined for inappropriate online activities during 2010.
