Jobs put at risk over racist posts

Workers posting racist or discriminatory comments online should expect their employers to act if they are found out, an employment lawyer says.

On Wednesday, Bluebird NZ said one of its managers had been stood down while it investigated anti-māori language comments made online.

The comments followed

Whittaker’s release of the limited edition Miraka Kirı¯mi (Creamy Milk) chocolate block ahead of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori.

After the comment and the poster’s place of work were shared on Tiktok, Bluebird said it did not tolerate racism and the worker had been ‘‘removed from duties’’ while it investigated.

Anna Oberndorfer, managing director of Christchurch firm Your Employment Law Link, said there was a broad principle that employers didn’t have the right to interfere with what employees did outside the workplace and in their own time.

However, there were exceptions to that principle, and it had eroded over time. In recent years, many issues had arisen from social media posts, she said.

While employers were justified in investigating contentious posts, any outcomes had to take into account all the facts, including the settings in which the posts were made, and whether a connection could be made between the author and their workplace.

‘‘Obviously the content is an important consideration and whether or not there could have been reputational damage or has been reputational damage in fact,’’ she said.

‘‘In this Bluebird situation, the post and the place of employment have been identified publicly. The fact that the position of manager is an influential one and the subject is discrimination means it was more likely that the employer needed to address the problem rather than ignore it.’’

While many people took the view that everyone was entitled to voice their opinion, the possible ramifications for Bluebird were too high to ignore, she said.

Employers still had to ensure they did not breach their own obligations to employees. In Bluebird’s case, advertising that the employee had been removed from duties while an investigation took place added another element of punishment, before the facts were established.