By The Editor
A human resources assistant at a major English bank was sacked from her job after criticising the discrepancy between her salary and that of the bank’s CEO in a Facebook post.
Last week it was revealed in the UK press that new Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) CEO Antonio Horta-Osorio was being paid up to £13.3 million (about $A21 million) a year by the bank, which the UK Government took 40 per cent ownership of during the peak of the global financial crisis.
The news provoked much discussion in the UK about the amount being paid to Mr Horta-Osorio, and prompted Stephanie Bon, a short-term employee at the bank’s Colchester branch, to post on her Facebook page:
LBG’s new CEO gets £4,000 an hour. I get £7. That’s fair.
“I was at my friend’s having coffee and it was on the news. I went on Facebook and within a couple of hours something else came up so I changed my status,” Ms Bon told the Daily Mail.
The next day at work, Ms Bon was summoned to a meeting and told her services were no longer required.
“My team leader asked me why I was writing things like that,” she said. “Then my manager came in and said she was disappointed in me.
“She said I was putting the company down. But I did not write anything that was controversial.”
As we’ve seen before though, Facebook posts about work can lead to disciplinary action at the workplace and could be construed as a breach of an employment relationship.
Happily in Ms Bon’s case, she was quickly able to pick up another job as an administrator soon after being sacked by Lloyds.
“If I have got an opinion, I write it because I don’t expect my friends to grass me up,” she said.
Do you think what Stephanie Bon wrote on her Facebook page justifies her dismissal?
Corporate theft by CEO’s is not unrelated to violent acts by rioters on the streets. When the have nots feel powerless and dispossessed in the face of exploitative excess sooner or later the lid comes off. Greedy people are not going to reign their madness in, it is up to others to call them to account.
Either great personal commitment or a unified front against modern day robber barons is needed.
The fact that this all occurred in a very short period of time suggests that there is company insecurity for Lloyd’s with all ‘social media’ is monitored to control bad PR. (and I am just reading 1984 for the first time, hmmm thought control?) I actually think the comment is benign and ambiguous…but now the way they have handled it, it’s bigger than EVER!
Really? Why is the bank so insecure? She was stating a fact. It was not a personal insult or criticism. Its her own personal site and she is entitled to comment on her life as she wishes. Imagine if she’d actually said something derogatory!
In the 1920s-30s when banks went belly up, the people who caused the depression were prosecuted or sent to gaol, or fell to their deaths. This is a bank that FAILED and received a bail out from the tax payer. There is an even bigger global depression on its way, as the elements that caused the GFC have not been rectified. This employee was right in expressing her opinion although it was quite benign, it just goes to show how arrogant and corrupt corporate culture has become. mC says: “Don’t bite the hand that feeds!” LOL!!! Puh-lease…Ms Bons TAXES bailed out the bank, and is now subsidising this CEOs salary. Who is feeding who???
The sensible and responsible thing for her to do if she felt she deserved more for her role was to take it up to her immediate supervisor rather than whingeing publicly about what the CEO is getting.
We have a tendency to forget that freedom of speech or freedom of anything else comes with great responsibility.
So, act and behave responsibly.
Yes, just like the banks, who all took risks, bacame bankrupt, received bailout money from the government (the taxpayer), and then gave themselves hefty bonuses, now central banks are printing money, which is devaluing the US dollar, causing commodity price rises (ie food, fuel, gold, silver, cotton), this is causing food riots in the poorest of countries. People are starving to death Thai..Look at Tunisia, Egypt, even in the US, the poverty there is astounding – you think the people who lost their houses-lost their pants in the GFC are not in the streets suffering??. These people (banks and the elite) have blood on their hands, as always- that is how they like it.
“So, act and behave responsibly.”
The funny thing is that, had her Facebook comment been ignored by the bank, a very small number of people would have known anything about it, or the wage discrepancy, at all. Now, because of the bank’s action in sacking the woman, the matter has received huge publicity and thousands of people have had it brought to their attention.
This is PC Correctness gone wrong – Facebook is a private space for your thoughts and Im sorry but your work shouldnt be invaiding your privacy nor should they be taking what was a simple fact stated in public to this extreme, come on people wake up- seriously – any major compan publishes the CEO salary, its not a crime to comment on it.
It was only a statement of fact not a criticism. Unfortunately freedom of all sorts is under attack these days let alone freedom of thought or speech.
Shades of McCarthism have never left the world’s consciousness………. it is most unfortunate that one must constantly be editing ones thoughts on the most simplest of topics, wage comparision. How sad!!!
What she said doesn’t really sound like much of a criticism, but she was a temp and negativity is not acceptable to some companies. Facebook is testing what used to pass as free speech, or at least what is free speech when said in private. The same rules apply as was the case 10 years ago with people needing to be careful about who they spoke about and in what situation. Nothing changes. Don’t bite the hand that feeds!