Employer threatened sanction for publishing opinion piece about our industry

k12479

tightauldgit said:

...If you want to be able to write about your industry then you need to find an employer that will allow you to do that. 

Or go it alone and set up as an independent consultant, advisor, etc.

What you generally can't do is have your cake and eat it, using what you have via your employment in a supposed separate, parallel professional life.

Marcon

k12479 said:

tightauldgit said:

...If you want to be able to write about your industry then you need to find an employer that will allow you to do that. 

Or go it alone and set up as an independent consultant, advisor, etc.

What you generally can't do is have your cake and eat it, using what you have via your employment in a supposed separate, parallel professional life.

Plenty of people do - just look at the number of disclaimers saying something is so-and-so's personal opinion and does not reflect etc etc. On the whole, though, those individuals are pretty high profile and well established, whereas OP doesn't sound as if that describes their situation (at least not yet!).

Undervalued

Marcon said:

k12479 said:

tightauldgit said:

...If you want to be able to write about your industry then you need to find an employer that will allow you to do that. 

Or go it alone and set up as an independent consultant, advisor, etc.

What you generally can't do is have your cake and eat it, using what you have via your employment in a supposed separate, parallel professional life.

Plenty of people do - just look at the number of disclaimers saying something is so-and-so's personal opinion and does not reflect etc etc. On the whole, though, those individuals are pretty high profile and well established, whereas OP doesn't sound as if that describes their situation (at least not yet!).

Yes but they would generally need the agreement of their employer to do even that and it will not always be forthcoming.

Some employers won't care one way or the other, some may agree providing there is a disclaimer whilst others will prohibit any publication without specific agreement.

TBagpuss

thumpatron said:

Thank you for your guidance all.  Just to clarify for Undervalued, the idea for publishing anonymously came from my director via email so I have a record of this.  I can see now the legal position.  I'm quite troubled by the moral position of being legally unable to have a separate professional identity from my employer.  I don't feel I'm trying to circumvent anything, I just feel that I am separate and different from my employer and that is fine!

As a by-note, one of the things my director raised was that I wasn't allowed to make any political comment (I hadn't) as a council employee.  Two days later her line manager tweeted an overtly pro-(major political party) tweet!

Anyway, I'll set up a meeting with my employer's communications team - thanks all!

You can have a separate professional repuation. You just can't have it off the back of your existing job and using our current job for copy, unless your employer is OK with that. 

If you were writing restaurant reviews or fiction then it is very unlikely that your employer would have any objections (although given that you have already had issus it wouldbe wise to double check that. If they have objections to anything being pubished with your name on then it sounds as though a non-de-plume would be appropriate  to allow you to develop your writing with a conisistent name, even if it is not your own name.