Dilbert tangles with First Amendment: When do employees’ free-speech rights cross the line?
April 10, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: Dubious decisions, Here comes the judge, Special Report
If any employee called a manager at your company a “drunken lemur,” you might consider disciplinary action. But what if the comparison between managers and small, intoxicated animals is posted as a cartoon on a bulletin board, instead?
Insubordination or just a little anti-boss humor? Most times it’s not difficult for HR pros to differentiate between the two.
But an Iowa company didn’t see the humor in a Dilbert comic strip posted by an employee that compared managers to drunken lemurs.
The Catfish Bend Casino in Iowa was so upset, that it went to the trouble of watching surveillance video to identify the employee who put the comic on a bulletin board.
The culprit was Dave Steward, who quickly found himself fired.
Illustrator Scott Adams has come to Steward’s defense by basing a few days worth of Dilbert comics on the fired worker’s situation.
In one, regular character Wally was called into the pointy-haired boss’s office after he posted a comic.
“Do you think drunken lemurs are like managers?” the boss asked Wally.
“No. Some lemurs can hold their liquor,” Wally responded.
While Adams is defending Steward, the comic artist suggests workers stick to posting tamer strips.
How would you have handled this?
So, did the casino make a wise decision by firing Steward? Of course, that’s open to debate, but the results of Steward’s application for unemployment benefits may be one indication.
The casino challenged his claim, saying Steward had accused decision-makers of being drunken lemurs, and that should be considered misconduct. Steward said he was trying to cheer people up amidst layoffs at the casino.
The judge sided with Steward, saying posting the comic represented a “good-faith error in judgment,” not intentional misbehavior.
Aside from that, the law is on employers’ sides if they want to fire employees over something they have written or said at work.
Only five states have laws protecting an employee’s right to free speech: California, Colorado, Montana, New York and North Dakota. There are no moves afoot in Congress to pass a national law.
And with the explosion of personal blogs on the Internet, the question of employee free speech extends beyond what happens in the workplace. Some companies are checking to make sure workers don’t post derogatory comments about their jobs on the Web.
The argument becomes clearer when employees make comments about a particular workplace. But what about general office humor, such as Dilbert comics? We’d like to know what you think.
Tags: cartoons at work, Dilbert, employee fired, employee free speech
April 11th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
If there wasn’t truth in the cartoons, no one would post them. I am (gasp!) the Human Resources Director. Also, if there was no truth in them, no one would be offended. If the truth hurts…?
April 11th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I personal think that the management went a little overboard and showed no sense of rumor. But, then i can see their point, they did not want things to get worse for them amid the lay offs. Refusing his unemployment was very wrong on their part. Firing him was punishment enough.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Some Dilbert cartoons are very funny and appropriate. That said, the worker showed poor judgment in posting the cartoon about the drunken lemurs on the company bulletin board. In our office, the Office Manager oversees the items posted on the bulletin board. Even though I am the HR/Payroll rep for our office I always ask permission before posting anything on the company bulletin board. No employee has ever been refused permission to post an advertisement or a notice of general interest on the company bulletyin board. I do suspect that our Office manager would urge the employee to think again before posting this cartoon.
I do have HR bulletin boards for the required postings of the state and federal government as well as important memos from the Head Office. I handle these boards myself.
It might be a good idea for companies to desginate someone as the overseerer of the bulletin board.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Did the employee have permission to post on the company bulletin board?
April 14th, 2008 at 11:58 am
The mgmt at that Casino needs to lighten up. It’s a cartoon! Our CEO buys a Dilbert desk calendar for his office every year. I’m a senior manager and subscribe to the Daily Dibert. I have a stack of them that I have printed out and save when I need a good laugh. If I couldn’t laugh about the bureaucratic, convoluted work that we do, it would be a sad place to work. After all, we spend most of your waking hours on the job, so why not enjoy silly things that might be happening in our workplace? It was just a cartoon after all, written to make us think and laugh.
April 14th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I was an HR manager at a large casino corporation for 3 years. These people COMPLETELY overreacted. Casinos are businesses but they are also (ideally) a fun place to work. When you suck the humor out of your employees they give less service to the casino guests.
This looks like a case of weak, insecure management - by firing this guy all they did was destroy any shred of trust they had left with their employee base.
Win the battle - lose the war. Hmmmm I wonder why they were laying people off? Possibly business is off due to poor service?
April 14th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Knowing what I know about this guy in Iowa getting fired, is that, not all the rules in the world apply to the workplace. In short, as a person coming to work, the company is not paying you to be yourself, express yourself, or be whatever is you need to be. The company is paying you to come to the jobsite, actually WORK and in turn they will give you cash and health care, etc. So should Mr. Steward have been fired, knowing what I know….no. But should he be allowed to express his humor…..perhaps.
Am I contradicting myself? Not really. It is the responsibility of Mr. Steward to come to work and work while he is there. But it also the responsibility of the Catfish Bend Casino to make Mr. Steward aware of his rights as an employee and what they expect in terms of conduct. If they don’t, them shame on them and Mr. Steward is probably better off not working there anyway. In my opinion, this seems silly that the Casino has no room for humor, but if they don’t, they should have kindly reminded Mr. Steward that, “We have no sense of humor here and neither do you. So get back to work and don’t do it again.” In other words, if it’s within company policy and it is not heinous, like stabbing a co-worker, a verbal warning would have been suffice.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I guess the company proved the employee’s point by firing him.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Seems to me Catfish may have averted providing Steward his lay-off severence package.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
As an HR Manager, I never miss the Dilbert strip each Sunday. You never know if Dilbert may have a fun way to share some insight into our work. The drunken Lemur strip would not be appropriate to post at our worksite and we do regulate the postings that are allowed in common areas to work/benefit related information. If that had happened at our work site, the employee who posted it would be given a verbal warning based on our current policies and a reminder to all employees about proper postings would be communicated at our next All Hands Mtg.
When I come in the office and find a Dilbert strip taped to my door, I am glad to know that our employees still have a sense of humor, especially during these economic times.
August 6th, 2008 at 10:23 am
I think they really overreacted. We also regulate what is posted on the bulletin boards, but a verbal or written warning would be a more appropriate response to someone who violated this policy, assuming what was posted wasn’t pornographic / obscene / discriminatory. Good clean humor in the work environment is necessary. It keeps the culture healthy. We have to be able to laugh at ourselves and our quirks and not take ourselves too seriously.
I don’t know why the management at this casino was so upset about such a silly cartoon…obviously, they AREN’T drunken lemurs. So why not let the employee know it wasn’t really appropriate to post, laugh a little and move on? Are the managers upset because they often get drunk at work? If so, there’s a larger problem. The posting of this cartoon seems pretty harmless to me as sometimes this type of humor helps diffuse bitterness. And yes, I’m an HR manager and yes, I love Dilbert. Not all of us HR people are evil, but I still enjoy the humor of the cartoon. Lighten up!
November 9th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
“Some companies are checking to make sure workers don’t post derogatory comments about their jobs on the Web.”
How would they know? If I were posting derogatory comments about my job, I wouldn’t use my real name.