If my rights to the freedom of expression can be ignored in this manner then so can the rights of any worker's. You also have to ask yourself who is listening to you? Who is reading what you write and passing judgement? Is it acceptable for companies to be monitoring what their employees do in their own time? To act as if your employment contract controls every aspect of your personal life outside of work?
These are the words of Joe Gordon, who lost his job at a branch of the Waterstone's in Edinburgh on January 5. He says the book chain claimed he'd "brought the company into disrepute" by occasionally writing about workplace matters on his blog, The Woolamaloo Gazette and using the phrase "Bastardstone's" to describe his employer. But Joe also points out the ways he has promoted the Waterstone's brand in his own time during his 11 years of service at the firm.
I spoke to the Waterstone's press office this afternoon, but they refused to comment at all on the case for reasons of confidentiality (apart from confirming that Joe had indeed been dismissed) until they hear from Joe whether he wants to exercise the right to appeal against the decision.
In the meantime, Joe's fate raises some knotty questions for companies, who are increasingly likely to find themselves with one or more blogging employees. Should companies allow their bloggers to say absolutely anything on their personal blog in their own time? Is there a line to be drawn at, say, racist or anti-semitic postings? What about staffers who reveal company secrets, or criticise the products sold in the store in which they work, like the blogger who writes My Life as a Morrisons Employee. They recently wrote of a line of the supermarket's suitcases: "they are cheap and crap and last time we sold them we got loads back because of the stitching and locks ... so don't buy them, they're crap".
The case study of Joe Gordon's dismissal could prove to be a wake-up call for UK companies who haven't thought through their stance on employee blogs. Particularly as things like this International Bloggers Bill of Rights - which includes a list of allegedly "blogphobic" firms - begin to propagate around the web.
London Ambulance Service employee and blogger Tom Reynolds (who I interviewed a while back) took part in a discussion on BBC Radio Scotland on this topic: he links to the interview and blogs about the experience here. It's a fascinating debate and well worth a listen: not least for the views of a lawyer who says his firm has draft 32 companies' blog policies since November, and the businessman who condemns blogging as "power without responsibility".
Simon Waldman, Guardian Unlimited's head of digital publishing, has two blogs of his own, so he is more qualified than most bosses to take a view on the matter of blogging employees. He told me in an email:
My view is pretty simple - there are two things that staff shouldn't do when blogging (and I include myself in this): project the company in a bad light or give away confidential information. There's nothing new there. They are pretty standard - and I'd hope clearly understood - conditions of employment. What is new is that, given the characteristics of the net (instant/global/permanent), both the good and harm that can potentially be done to a company by staff blogging is exponentially greater than anything that has gone before.
If you're interested, there are several of us here at Guardian Unlimited with personal blogs, including our head of development Lloyd Shepherd, assistant editor Neil McIntosh, production assistant Anna Pickard and, er, me.
