Fair Work upholds sacking for Facebook rant

FAIR Work Australia has upheld the right of an employer to sack a worker over an expletive-filled Facebook rant against a manager that was posted out of hours on his home computer.

In a case that highlights the hazy line between work and private lives, computer technician Damian O’Keefe was dismissed after posting on Facebook last year that he “wonders how the f *** work can be so f***ing useless and mess up my pay again. C***s are going down tomorrow.”

Mr O’Keefe’s employer, a Townsville franchise of the retail electrical goods business, The Good Guys, believed the post constituted a threat to Kelly Taylor, an operations manager responsible for processing the pay of employees.

Mr O’Keefe admitted the target of his comments was Ms Taylor.

The day after the comments were posted, employer Troy Williams told Mr O’Keefe that “I am taking it you resigned. You can’t work here – you made threats against us.”

Upon Mr O’Keefe requesting a termination certificate, Mr Williams said: “I can’t keep you employed. What do I do if there are females who want to sue for harassment? It’s best for you to just go.”

The employers argued there was an intimate link between Mr O’Keefe’s Facebook post and his work.

What was published “was about a co-worker and was published so that some of his co-workers could see what he had written”.

Mr O’Keefe said he had been angry at not being paid commissions owed to him and his comments were not intended to be seen by Ms Taylor.

He said his Facebook privacy settings meant only his select group of 70 friends could see his comments, but admitted 11 were co-workers.

The tribunal’s deputy president, Deidre Swan, said “common sense would dictate” that a worker could not publish insulting and threatening comments about another employee.

“The fact that the comments were made on the applicant’s home computer, out of work hours, does not make any difference,” she said.

She found Mr O’Keefe had engaged in serious misconduct and dismissed his unfair dismissal application.