Is this ethical?.

theoretica

Was the business sharing business information? Eg didn't meet targets, poor attendance. Or was it personal information about the worker, eg illness or work affected by family situation?

Comms69

What was the reason? That will help tell you if a law was, possibly, broken

stator

You'll have to say what the reason was for anyone to tell whether a law was broken. It's unlikely that one was.

TBagpuss

As others have said, knowing what the reason makes a lot of difference. *normally& it isn't appropriate (although probably not illegal) to share the information, but it may be appropriate if (for instance) it relates to misconduct where other members of staff were also under suspicion, where the employer might want to make public that the culprit has been found. Or if they were dismissed because of behaviour to other staff that might be relevant.

In terms of ethics, I think it depends on what the information was which was shared. If it related to someone's personal circumstances (e.g. they were fired for capacity reasons related to their health or family problems) then I would see it as inappropriate.

If however they were fired for misconduct, I don't know that the employer has any ethical obligation to keep that quiet, although it is unusual to go public about these things.

Maybe the employers are worried other people may behave in simialar ways and want to make them aware of the consequences of they do? Or maybe there is just a really bad manager!

74jax

hyubh wrote: »

Crikey, that's a brave question to ask on this board! What sort of replies might one foresee...?

- Not in a recognised union? Deserved all they got.
- What's legal is what matters.
- None of your business.
- I'm affronted by your thought that it is your business.

Edit: ah, with apologies to 74jax! 'How else would you know? Wouldn't you wonder where they were?' is clearly canonical too.

Love it

Fireflyaway

Its hard to say unless you share the reason and what was said. A long time ago a colleague of mine was caught viewing ' adult' material at work. Still can't believe how dumb that was! Anyway it was made quite public, I think as a warning to others.
Its sometimes better to hear it from the horses mouth than people start chatting, making up rumours and such.
I suppose the only time it would be unethical is if the person were falsely accused of something or it were something personal they didn't want sharing.

patman99

It was down to the amount of parts that had been produced wrongly within the area.

There are two machine operators operating two machines. Both make the odd error, but all the mistakes were pinned on the one operator.

stator

I don't think they've done anything wrong in telling people about it.
Details about work that was completed or faulty is not private data.