Dispute Summary

Dispute Summary

This document addresses an incident of an associate that was accused of surfing pornography web sites in the workplace on company time. The final outcome was a favorable resolution for the associate. The associate was not aware that the company monitors all web site activities accessed by employees on a daily basis. Before the associate was approached by Personnel, Human Resources had documentation with dates, times, and identification numbers for a period of 60 days. The associate denied the accusation by informing management that his identification had been stolen. The offense of an employee surfing pornography sites during company business is a violation of the code of conduct that may result in termination.

The associate was counseled for accessing pornography sites on company time and using a personal identification number assigned in confidence. The personal identification was a secure sign on that was given to the associate to properly use accordingly for business purposes. The associate was actually given access to the internet for work related business only, which was intended to be used for reconciling the outgoing mail for a presort postal vendor. Evidently, the associate was sited for logging into the Internet with his personal identification number through out the day on a daily basis viewing explicit sites. The websites the associate accessed regularly were pornography sites. When personnel approached the associate, the employee denied ever using the Internet sign on to view pornography sites. The associate claimed that he could not access the web because his log on ID was stolen. When personnel asked the associate why he did not report the stolen sign on, the associate replied that he forgot to report the information. In addition, personnel had documentation of the associate badge clock time as well. However, personnel was not clear if the computer time was accessed around the same time that the associate badge was clocked at the department door keypad. At that time, personnel decided to do a further investigation on the associate, web sites, and badge activity.

After 30 days of further investigating, personnel returned with additional documentation on the associate activities. Personnel had a clear case against the associate because the badge clocks and web access were around the same time. In addition, the associate was seemed on film around the same time as the badge clocks and web access. Also, the associate continued to access the pornography sites while under investigation, which all the evidence that personnel gathered pointed directly to the associate. After an informal round table mediation, the associate admitted to using the internet for personal use. Since the department was in the process of consolidating to Maryland, and the staff was at a bare