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Can I fire my employees for comments made through a Facebook chat. Some comments were uttering death threats to towards management, admitting to theft to their coworker and former coworkers (we checked inventory and see it's true), saying they were going to fabricate stories and get their boss thrown in jail with their falsified information, sharing confidential company information with former employees.
This chat was done through Facebook (messenger), on a company computer (mostly during company time). One employee did not log out of their account. We also have a keylogger running in the background on all company computers. We have screenshots of everything. Besides civil litigation and possible criminal charges, can we legitimately fire this/these employees for partaking?
Thank you for reaching out to our firm.
The conduct of your employees does sound as though it has risen to the level of just cause, meaning that you could terminate them without providing severance. However, we highly recommend that you seek a formal legal opinion before doing so. What may be cause in the case of one employee, may not be so in the case of another and you may run the risk of complaints with the Ministry or Labour or wrongful dismissal suits.
With that in mind, we highly recommend that you contact our firm by phone so that we can provide you with a more full opinion on the case each employee and also guidance in how to go about effecting terminations.
The conduct of your employees does sound as though it has risen to the level of just cause, meaning that you could terminate them without providing severance. However, we highly recommend that you seek a formal legal opinion before doing so. What may be cause in the case of one employee, may not be so in the case of another and you may run the risk of complaints with the Ministry or Labour or wrongful dismissal suits.
With that in mind, we highly recommend that you contact our firm by phone so that we can provide you with a more full opinion on the case each employee and also guidance in how to go about effecting terminations.