Don't blog your boss

Workers are starting to lose their jobs because of what they say about their employers and bosses on personal websites called weblogs. Weblogs allow almost anyone with access to a computer and an internet connection to publish online journals. No longer do you have to sneak a look at a someone's diary to discover their inner thoughts - there's a chance they publish them on the net for all to see (including their employer).

There are already more than five million blogs sites with the number growing every day. People seem to want to share everything, such as who their partner is, what they ate last night, moans about noisy neighbours - and sometimes blogger's bosses get a disparaging mention too, which is where trouble starts.

What began as innocent fun for millions of people keen to let off steam by sharing their daily grind and homespun philosophy has caused job losses for some. A pattern is already starting to emerge among a few high-profile cases.

In the United States, Ellen Simonetti lost her job at Delta Airlines after she posted photos of herself on her weblog in diary of a flight attendant.

Pictures showed her posing on board an aircraft wearing staff uniform. The company wasn't pleased. Until she included the photos, her site had been anonymous.

The airline stood her down. She removed the photos, but the company ultimately decided to dispense with her services. She says she plans to sue the airline for discrimination.

Mark Jen lost his job at internet company Google after just 11 days with the firm in the US. His mistake? Keeping an daily online diary of his time there and revealing company tittle-tattle. Ironically, Google owns a company called Pyra Labs that enables people to start their own weblogs "in three easy steps".

In Britain, retail worker Joe Gordon became the first blogger in the country to be sacked because he kept an online diary that mentioned his "sandal-wearing" boss at bookseller Waterstone's. Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that Gordon was sacked for "gross misconduct" and for "bringing the company into disrepute".

It seems that few if any companies have specific policies on weblogs. These websites have blurred the lines between freedom of speech, privacy and employment rights.

Trouble is, it won't get any easier as more people use the internet to start personal websites covering everything from hobbies, political views and their general thoughts about life, work colleagues and their place of work.

Defamation and slander aside, where do we stand here in New Zealand? Can you get sacked for posting private thoughts about the office and colleagues on your own website?

The first problem for employees could come if they use their employer's time and equipment to work on or update their web page - even if it's done during the lunch hour. Companies don't often provide computers and internet connections for staff's personal use.

Geoff Bevan, a solicitor with Chapman Tripp, says bloggers should be very careful about what they publish.

"Although blogs usually take the form of private diaries, as far as the law is concerned they are essentially public documents and bloggers can be sued or face disciplinary action at work if their material causes damage.

"The law allows employers to dismiss someone if their behaviour (whether at work or after hours) brings the employer into disrepute or undermines the employer's trust and confidence in the employee."

Bevan says that bloggers who criticise their employers, customers or colleagues, or whose blogs make their employers look silly are at risk of being fired if the sites comes to their employers' attention.

"Alternatively, if the comments are damaging but not serious enough to justify dismissal, an employer could legitimately ask that they be removed from the web," Bevan says. "More generally, bloggers can be exposed to defamation claims if what they publish damages someone else's reputation."

But sometimes, as Simonetti discovered, removing material doesn't always save the day. Once a website has been put up it can be anyone's guess how many people might have read it or printed it out before it was removed. And some internet companies make copies of web pages, so even if the original website is changed, copies of the offending version may be floating around.

Beverley Main, chief executive of the Human Resources Institute, says most employment contracts will have clauses about electronic publishing which would have been put in place as a result of email policies.

"If an employer sees something objectionable on the net written by a staff member then normal disciplinary proceedings will follow. Whether or not a person gets sacked could be down to how valuable that person is to the organisation. However, this is probably one of those situations where nothing in general employment agreements will be changed until something objectionable gets published, then companies will react and put more specific policies in place."

It seems that gossip and backbiting by the water-cooler is one thing, but putting it on the internet is quite another. Whatever people may think, it is publishing so the normal rules of engagement apply.

Main's advice is that if you want to record your thoughts, then do so in a paper diary where they are safely sealed away from your employer.