An employee who spends too much time on Facebook when they should be busy doing their work in the office could be fired by their employer. This was affirmed, in black and white, by the Court of Cassation through sentence no. 782 of 22 June 2016.
"Taking away time and tools, which must be aimed at serving the company, for purely personal purposes, such as chatting or looking at photos posted by friends - reads the document of the Supreme Court - violates the pact of trust that binds the employee to the 'agency. Therefore, dismissal is legitimate in the most serious cases, i.e. when the hours spent on the social network are numerous, even following previous warnings".
The employer also has the right to check the browsing history of his employee without infringing his right to privacy. In the event that, on the basis of it, he realizes that the worker spends too much time on Facebook, he may be fired for just cause. “The disciplinary dismissal for just cause against an employee who spends too much time on Facebook is legitimate. This conduct is particularly serious only when the employer is able to demonstrate that the time spent on the social network has been high".
However, the last word will be up to the Judge who will have to establish whether the employee's hours spent on Facebook are too many or not.
Today's sentence refers to a worker who, for private reasons, had made about 6 accesses in 18 months. Of these, 4.500 had been made on the popular social network founded by Mark Zuckerberg, with an average of 16 accesses per day over three hours of work. Definitely too much for the Cassation which agreed with the employer, considering the dismissal legitimate.
