Have you been sacked or disciplined for behaviour occuring outwith and unrelated to your employment?

Question

I'm preparing a disertation examining instances where employees have been sacked or disciplined for actions carried outwith the course of their employment. Eg for publicly expressing views contrary to those of their employer or for allegedly bringing their employer into disrepute in some way. I'm looking for examples and case studies - preferably where the matter has been considered by an employment tribunal or court.

Answer 1

There are some really good ones from the Tribunals, this one is quite famous and recent. Mr Redfern was an employee of Serco and transports elderly members of the asian community. It was found out that he was a candidate for the BNP and was subsequently fired on health and safety grounds after the company was pressurised by other unionised employees.
Another thing you might want to look into if you are in the UK. The equality act 2006 has received royal assent and comes into force in April it includes a wider definition of political and religious beliefs which could include political beliefs like Mr Redfern's it is causing a lot of consternation in businesses and with trade unions.
Hope it helps and good luck with your dissertation

Answer 2

In the US, people have been fired for smoking ... in their own home. Weyco, a company in Michigan, instituted a policy that no employee could smoke, ever. They set up a 15 month program helping smokers to quit. At the end, anyone who still smoked was fired (I believe there were four people fired). This isn't just if they smoked at work, it was if they smoked ANYWHERE.

Also, people have been fired for drinking the wrong brand of beer. A guy in Colorado who worked for Budweiser drank a bottle of Coors in a bar, was spotted by the son-in-law of a major shareholder, and was fired.

This is all in the United States - I don't know if it will help, but it's interesting, anyway.

Answer 3

It's happened to me twice. Once I worked for a lawyer whose new office had been designed by my father, an architect. There were problems with contractors during the construction, and the lawyer became furious with my father for the contractors' work, even though Dad wasn't to blame. He sent nasty faxes to Dad, even ordering me to type them for him. Finally, one day he came into my office, telling me that if my father didn't know any more about zoning laws than he did, he didn't deserve to be an architect (Dad's had his own practice since 1974, and knows them better than the lawyer). I politely told him that I would prefer that he not criticize my father to me in such a way. A few weeks later, the building was finished, and he fired me.

Also, I worked as a teller for a local bank. I have epilepsy, but I don't have seizures very often (maybe once a month, and rarely grand mals). After a while, I started having problems with my medicine, so the bank president ordered me to go on medical leave, even though I hadn't asked to. I came back after a month, and was assigned to another branch much further from my home, and told that if I missed one more day, I'd be fired. I only missed once, and that's because the branch manager ordered me to go home because I had bronchitis. About a month later, I was reassigned back to the main branch. A few weeks later, The bank president called me in. He fired me, because, as he said, "What would happen if a customer saw you have a seizure?!" I took this one to the EEOC, and they settled by paying me for the time I was off on "medical leave."

Answer 4

Disciplinary proceedings are sometimes taken against barristers whose conduct, while not having anything to do with their behaviour in the course of their work, brings the profession into disrepute. http://www.barcouncil.org.uk/document.asp?languageid=1&documentid=2267#ParaLink