WhatsApp.jpg" alt="dismissal whatsapp" >
As much as it is used as a form of personal communication, you are responsible for what you share on your WhatsApp on a professional level and it can even lead to disciplinary dismissal. This has been the case of a worker who was fired from his company for posting statuses with Memes from his bosses on the Meta messaging app.
If a few days ago we told you about a case of employment and salary sanction for insulting the company’s WhatsApp, today’s case was more personal, but it also had professional consequences.
Fired for ridiculing his bosses on WhatsApp
The worker, a hairdresser from the Spejo’s company, published in his WhatsApp status between the months of May and June 2021 various videos, memes and photos of the director of human resources and ex-partner of the company administrator and his son, company director.
whatsapp trial
For example, the employee published a video of a bodybuilder in a bathing suit with a Christmas tree singing the song “Bamboleo” by the Gipsy Kings and the manager’s face embedded in it or on a model singing the song “Barbie girl”, by Aqua. As for the HR director, an example of montage was her face on a woman taking what appeared to be a bottle of gin from between her breasts.
Because of these actions, which reached those affected, the worker received in June 2021 a disciplinary dismissal letter for “mistreatment in word and deed, abuse of authority, lack of respect and consideration for bosses or their relatives, as well as for colleagues, subordinates and clients, and conduct constituting moral harassment and insults, provided for and typified in the Convention and in article 54.2 c) and d) of the Workers’ Statute.
The Justice considers that it is fair dismissal
The worker decided to appeal the dismissal when considering that the facts do not have sufficient entity to justify the dismissal. The Social Court No. 10 of Madrid validated the termination and declared the dismissal appropriate.
After appealing again said resolution in supplication, now, the Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid returned to agree with the company.
Justice
Among the reasons for this, the ruling considers that the worker’s conduct involves “a series of contractual breaches of a serious and culpable nature and of sufficient entity to justify disciplinary dismissal.” They consider this content as “clearly offensive”, “degrading content” and “a clear personal and professional loss of prestige”.
In addition, the fact that many of this worker’s colleagues saw these WhatsApp statuses acts as an aggravating factor in the situation:
“[Estos memes] It was a constant topic of conversation in the different barbershops and they have been viewed by various workers until reaching the affected recipients, as well as that they are messages with allusions to homelessness, alcoholism or drug addiction, in which the recipients are branded as liars in clear derision of them. The repeated publications, by themselves, are serious enough to justify dismissal”, concludes the ruling.