In Which I Agree

With Kenan Malik. Writing in the Guardian. Yes, really.

Why are employers allowed to police what we say as private citizens?

The usual excuse given is that they bring the company into disrepute. However, nothing can bring them into disrepute more effectively than sacking someone for expressing their opinion as a private citizen. Employers should have no rights whatsoever regarding what people say outside of the workplace, because it’s none of their damned business. However, they can and do, so it behoves us to use pseudonyms. Which brings us to a conundrum, because the Guardian regularly carries articles condemning online anonymity and pseudonyms. They want us to all be out there exposed for all to see. But if your opinions are now deemed to be “far right” or Islamophobic – or some other made up phobia, then your employer can claim that you have brought them into disrepute and sack you. Wonderful.

Of course, if you use Facebook, don’t link with anyone from work and lock everything down so that only your approved friends can see it, should help somewhat. And never allow your employer access should they ask. Just tell them you don’t do Facebook if it becomes an issue. As for Twitter, just don’t.

This takes us to the second issue: the right of an employee to speak his or her mind when acting as a private citizen. A spokesman for Cricket Australia claimed that it “respects an individual’s right to their opinion”; however, “it expects that employees will refrain from making offensive comments”.

This is because employers get above their station and seem to think that paying someone a salary confers ownership of them. It doesn’t. Employers are buying time and expertise. Nothing else and they have no right to demand anything else.

The ability of employers to police employees’ comments has been made easier by the way that many now use social media as a weapon against those whose views they despise. It has become common practice to comb through an individual’s back tweets, to highlight nasty or embarrassing comments, and to demand that they be punished or sacked for them.

See above. Although, of course, the same can be said of blogs. God alone knows what I might have written in the past sixteen years that could be used against me. Quite a lot, probably. Hence the thin veneer of the pseudonym. But, then, I’m not seeking an employer.

There is, of course, a world of difference between Williamson’s demand for political change and the racist or misogynist tweets, of, say, Roseanne Barr or Toby Young. Employers may be rightly concerned about their public image.

Actually, no, there is no difference. Both are the exercise of free speech and both are none of the employer’s business.

But once we accept that employers have a right to control what we say as private citizens, then it becomes difficult to draw clear lines between acceptable and unacceptable tweets. And protection of public image should not become an all-encompassing means of controlling employees’ views.

Quite. The line is very simple to discern. Once out of the workplace, the employer has no jurisdiction. That’s it. There will be very rare occasions where the lines blur, but they are far and few between.

Employers should not have the right to dictate what views are acceptable outside the workplace.

Yup. That’s it. A few eye-watering damages claims in the event of dismissals following such events should concentrate the minds of HR departments who think they are the law.