December 05, 2011
Apple has won a claim against them for unfair dismissal by a former employee, Samuel Crisp, who they sacked for comments he made on social networking site, Facebook. Mr Crisp made derogatory comments about his job as well as his iPhone misfiring applications. The tribunal ruled that although his sacking might have been harsh, it was not unfair.
Mr Crisp had posted amongst other things that his iPhone had messed up his time-zone “for the third time in a week and woke me up at 3am? JOY!!!” He also made fun of the company’s tagline when the Beatles back catalogue was added (Tomorrow is another day) by posting "Tomorrow's just another day that hopefully I will forget.” Although the posts were only shared with certain individuals, one Facebook friend and colleague told bosses at the Norwich store where Mr Crisp worked.
The tribunal said of Apple "we take into account their position that the Facebook posts were not truly private and could in fact have been forwarded very easily with the claimant having no control over this process.” They accepted their submission that the comments were damaging to their reputation.
Due to central importance of image to their brand, Apple has a strict social media policy which prohibits employees from making critical comments. The news comes shortly after a survey carried out by HCL Technologies with Lewis PR in May this year found that of the 2,000 employees surveyed over half of their employers had banned access to social networking sites at work.
