[Tenchiro]

Placed in PWN so N8 doesn't complain.

Judge: Web-Surfing Worker Can't Be Fired
© 2006 The Associated Press

NEW YORK — Saying surfing the web is equivalent to reading a newspaper or talking on the phone, an administrative law judge has suggested that only a reprimand is appropriate as punishment for a city worker accused of failing to heed warnings to stay off the Internet.

Administrative Law Judge John Spooner reached his decision in the case of Toquir Choudhri, a 14-year veteran of the Department of Education who had been accused of ignoring supervisors who told him to stop browsing the Internet at work.

The ruling came after Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired a worker in the city's legislative office in Albany earlier this year after he saw the man playing a game of solitaire on his computer.

In his decision, Spooner wrote: "It should be observed that the Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone or a daily newspaper, providing a combination of communication and information that most employees use as frequently in their personal lives as for their work."

He added: "For this reason, city agencies permit workers to use a telephone for personal calls, so long as this does not interfere with their overall work performance. Many agencies apply the same standard to the use of the Internet for personal purposes."

Spooner dispensed the lightest possible punishment on Choudhri, a reprimand, after a search of Choudhri's computer files revealed he had visited several news and travel sites.

Martin Druyan, Choudhri's lawyer, called the ruling "very reasonable."

 

[kinghami3]

sooo.....? Is this surprising to you?

 

[valve bouncer]

Seems like a fair ruling to me but no doubts we'll have the usual suspects on here demanding that bosses be able to fire at will for whatever reasons they think fit.

 

[Connundrum1]

its easy enough to regulate if an employee excessively surfs the internet. any mid sized to enterprise level company including government has network monitoring and can see if an individual spends 75% of their day at personal websites. they can even specifically see the exact URL's. So it's easy to see if it is actually interfering with overall work performance.

 

[sanjuro]

I should point out this is a New York City civil servant, one of the best protected class of workers anywhere.

If you came into your place of business, and saw people loafing around, reading newspapers, making personal phone calls, or surfing; I think firings are in order. Just not a municiple worker.

 

[Andyman_1970]

I'm not surprised by this, a co-worker of mine got majorly busted for downloading all sorts of audio files and games (20 gig worth) on his hardrive. When it locked up, like a bone head he tried to put it on the network so he wouldn't loose all his stuff.........the IT nerds caught the network activity and busted him. He still works here........