Emergency Dispatcher Fired For Facebook Drug Joke 631
kaptink writes "Dana Kuchler, a 21-year veteran of the West Allis Dispatch Department, was fired from her job for making jokes on her Facebook page about taking drugs. She appealed to an arbitrator, claiming the Facebook post was a joke, pointing out she had written 'ha' in it, and noting that urine and hair samples tested negative for drugs. The arbitrator said she should be entitled to go back to work after a 30-day suspension, but the City of West Allis complained that was not appropriate. Is posting bad jokes on Facebook a justifiable reason to give someone the boot?"
w0w typo in summary (Score:1, Informative)
L2 edit
Activate Slashdot Affect on City of West Allis (Score:3, Informative)
Link to webform email Mayor Dan Devine [west-allis.wi.us] Phone #: (414) 302-8290
Link to webform email Human Resources director Audrey Key [west-allis.wi.us] Phone #: (414) 302-8292
I'm emailing the Mayor a picture of Kim Jong-il.
Re:No amount is too much to pay for your LIFE!!1 (Score:2, Informative)
Safe from danger? We are talking about emergency services, not your personal nanny. These agencies are a reactive service, not a proactive service. Sure, some violent acts might be discovered in-progress or just prior, but that does not occur very often.
Each person is responsible for their own safety.
Arbitration is Binding (Score:5, Informative)
Arbitration in the US is binding. They can huff and puff and try to blow the decision down, but they are going to lose.
Either she gets her job back or they end up paying her not to do her job.
Re:Sounds like the excuse.... (Score:5, Informative)
she had already been taken through 4 of the mandatory 5 steps to dismissal
"Kuchler was already on thin ice with the city, having gone through four of the five disciplinary steps required by the collective bargaining agreement with the local clerical union: a verbal warning, written warning, one-day-suspension, and three-day-suspension."
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/05/police_dispatcher_fired_for_st.php [sfweekly.com]
so it seems that for whatever reason, her bosses didn't think much of her...
So the arbiter ruled - end of problem (Score:5, Informative)
This is a non issue. The arbiter ruled. The person has to go back to work after 30 days.
Sanity prevailed.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Re:Sounds unreasonable (Score:1, Informative)
English isn't my native language, so I'm probably missing something here, but what construct is "21 year veteran with mandatory raises is pry a nice chunk of change"? The subject is "21 year veteran with mandatory raises" and then you lost me. "is pry"? Pry is a verb as in "pry it from my cold dead hands", right? Shouldn't that be "is prying"? But then I don't get what you're saying: "21 year old veteran is prying a nice chunk of change." From what or whom, and why is she so aggressive? Please enlighten me.
Re:Cause (Score:3, Informative)
Not quite. The cause is conservative Americans. There wouldn't be a problem and we wouldn't try to prohibit Americans from doing so many things if Americans weren't conservative.
STOP! (Score:5, Informative)
Look, if you don't want your job, just quit and go do something you like. Don't troll your employer into firing you, then drag lawyers into it. The only winners there are the lawyers, and that makes Baby Jesus strangle a kitten.
Why people use their real names: (Score:4, Informative)
Why oh why do people use their real names on this Net we call Inter? It just isn't worth the potential aggravation.
Why people use their real names:
Section 4.1 of Facebook terms and conditions:
-- Terry
Re:no (Score:5, Informative)
Soldiers can't be charged with conduct unbecoming for bad behavior unless they are in uniform, so why should it be different?
Actually, they can under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It applies to all US service members regardless of location, in and out of uniform.
I don't see why something similar wouldn't apply to other nations militiaries or other government organizations...
Re:no (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely, 100% wrong. They can. The fact that the individual works for a public service and not a private corporation is actually worse for their case, not better for it.
Re:Sounds unreasonable (Score:5, Informative)
I've never worked on the dispatch side of things, but there is a huge difference between a good dispatcher and a bad one. The good ones are true multitaskers; they not only know what goes on during a fire/EMS call, but can tell what's happening just by the sound of someone's voice, and can manage to keep track of five or six separate incidents at one time. Many of them are former fire/EMS/law enforcement who either retired or had to quit for medical reasons.
Most dispatchers pull 12-hour shifts, often overnight. It's a stressful job where you're sitting at a desk all day trying to help coordinate a response to life-threatening situations solely by radio. I'd imagine it's a little like air traffic control, actually.
Muphry's Law (Score:1, Informative)
There's a scientific explanation [wikipedia.org] for that.
Re:Sounds unreasonable (Score:2, Informative)
Remember, her job is customer/public service, it wasn't just a joke to her boss, a family member, or a workmate, it was to the public at large.
That's not just stupid, that is personal negligence to your own career :)
next time learn to read.
she's a dispatcher for fire & police. Not 911, not customer/public service.
She would tell the police & fire dudes/dudesses where to go, answer their questions.
How you got public/customer service from that is really sad.
Re:no (Score:5, Informative)
Soldiers can't be charged with conduct unbecoming for bad behavior unless they are in uniform, so why should it be different?.
in the British Army Yes they can, and the other services here too under Section 69 C of the Army Act 1955 in that they brought the Army in the disrepute
in this way a soldier can be charged by civilian authorities, get find guilty and THEN get done by the Army AS WELL under 69 C
it's a form of two charges for the same crime in a sense. As i was a soldier and have had this done for some drunken road sing collecting antics whilst serving in Germany in 1988 i know this well. and it's a VERY common thing to happen when you have been charged by the civilian authorities. sometimes you don't even need to be charged by the civilians to get this military charge. the investigation is enough to bring the wrath of section 69 C down upon you.
thus uniform NOT required at all for charges under military law.
Re:no (Score:2, Informative)
Soldiers can't be charged with conduct unbecoming for bad behavior unless they are in uniform
You might want to read the UCMJ again - or ask someone who's actually been in the military.
Re:no (Score:3, Informative)
Smokers already do pay for it many times over through taxes.... they also die younger, costing less in pensions. If smokers were not around, you'd have to pay more tax.
Re:Freedom of speech should be a law ;) (Score:3, Informative)
And anyone who works in the legal field knows that this is an abnormal thing that happened. I also suggest that there is more to that story, too. So just because the possibility exists that you could get sued for something because it happened to someone somewhere once upon a time, let's throw the baby out with the bathwater?
Remember when that lady sued McDonald's because the coffee was too hot and it burned her? Everyone over-reacted by serving cold coffee. Well guess what. They were making a decision based misinformation.
That particular McDonald's really did have their coffee too hot (it was in fact scalding 185F instead of 140F), and they had been warned about it many times before. Then, they did not secure their lids well enough to the coffee cups. So, when the lid came off, the entire contents of the cup -- scalding hot coffee -- spilled giving her 3rd degree burns all over her lap and genitals (over 6% of her body) that required skin graft and therapy in a hospital stay that lasted 8 days.
The lady offered to settle the claim for $20,000 and McDonald's refused.
So you have a case for unsafe conditions, neglect (they were fore-warned several times and did nothing), and you have severe personal harm as a result, and an uncooperative company. Well who wouldn't sue? I certainly would.
But the bottom line is that a lot of people made decisions on an event that was 1)rare and 2)had many more facts to it