EMPLOYEE RISKS LOSING HER JOB DUE TO ONLINE SURFING DURING WORKING HOURS
11/02/2019
COMPANY LAPTOPS MUST BE USED EXCLUSIVELY FOR WORK
The holder of a medical office carried out a check on the computer that was assigned to the secretary, as he was suspecting that she surfed the web and Facebook during the majority of her working hours. By examining the secretary’s internet history it resulted that in the past 18 months she had accessed the internet 6 thousand times, 4500 of which spent on Facebook. The company considered this number sufficiently high to legitimize the secretary’s just-cause termination.
The employee first appealed to the Court, which agreed with the company, and secondly to the Court of Appeal, which also supported the decision to withdraw from the employment relationship.
The Court of Cassation, which was also involved by the employee, found the employer’s decision to be fair.
The internet and Facebook logins made by the employee (which were never denied), were considered illegitimate as they were not work-related. Their numerosity was also examined by judges in order to state the severity of the employee’s behaviour.
The firing is therefore legitimate, as the employee’s behaviour is “contrary to the common ethics and eligible to undermine the employee’s trust”.
During working hours, computers (which are a corporate asset) must be used exclusively for the purposes for which they were assigned to the employees and for employment activity. They must not be used for leisure and personal amusement.
(Court of Cassation, sez. Lavoro, sentence n. 3133 ; October 23, 2018 – February 1, 2019)
In Italy, employees were protected by art. 18 of act n. 300/1970 (usually called “employees statue”), until 2014: workers unjustly fired could sue their employer for being reinstated to their job and for damages (salaries from firing to reinstating). So, if the judge had declared unlawful dismissal, companies had to pay years of salary and social security contribution, even if they didn’t’ get any job performance by fired employees (Italian trials were really slow). From 2015, this won’t happen anymore. In case of unlawful dismissal, employers will only have to pay damages to workers. This compensation will be reasonable: from 4 to 24 months of salary (2 months per year of working). Employees won’t have the right to be reinstated to their job, except for specific situations. So, if he doesn’t appreciate the worker, the employer won’t be obliged to readmit him in his company (except for racial, political and religious discrimination). According to new acts, civil trials are faster, thanks to their computerization. Now payment orders can be issued in a few days. Before, it took several months. Besides, debtors that refuse payments are obliged to pay default interest of 9%. So they have no incentive to delay payments: this would be too expensive. Creditors can ask the court for an order to search in public records debtor’s goods and current accounts to be attached (now access to records is allowed only to specialized agencies) . This new procedural instrument allows to attack debtor's assets more easily. Creditors will be satisfied effectively and more quickly. In this section of the website, we are going to show all this brandnew rules.
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