Fired for Cursing on the Job, Testing the Limits of Labor Law (Hooters bikini, reinstate back pay)

[Omaha Steve]

Michael Waraksa

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/business/fired-for-cursing-on-the-job-testing-the-limits-of-labor-law.html

By PHYLLIS KORKKI FEB. 13, 2016

Little did the managers of a Hooters restaurant realize that a bikini contest they sponsored in 2013 would end up testing the limits of labor law.

When a group of waitresses participated in the contest, held at a Hooters in Ontario, Calif., one of the losers was suspicious of the outcome. The winner’s boyfriend and her best friend were judges, after all. Not only that, but the winner had organized the contest. After the waitress complained that the contest was rigged, she was fired. The question is why.

The human resources department said the waitress was fired for cursing at the winner, and for writing negative social media posts. The waitress disagreed and brought the case before the National Labor Relations Board. As a case involving workplace profanity, it attracted the attention of Christine Neylon O’Brien, a business law professor at Boston College. Professor O’Brien discusses 10 such cases, including the Hooters episode, in a paper set to be published in St. John’s Law Review.

“Engaging in profanity at work or with co-workers online is certainly controversial, especially when the profanity is directed at managers or harms the company’s reputation,” Professor O’Brien notes in her paper. But tolerance for swearing varies from workplace to workplace. The question at the heart of many such cases is whether an employee’s swearing (or alleged swearing) is truly the reason for a firing or other disciplinary action. In some cases, it is found to be merely a pretext.

FULL story at link.

[JoeyT]

1. So they force their employees to show their ass, but they don't allow them to say ass?

How utterly ridiculous.