Following on from the sacking of a number of employees at the airline Virgin Blue for viewing and sharing pornography at work, some of those employees are now appealing against their termination of employment on the grounds of unfair dismissal.

Sharing pornography has been commonplace in the offices and staff rooms of Virgin Blue for years, the workers claim.  Far from objecting to this, they claim airline management openly condoned it.

One of the sacked workers claimed that sex had always been part of the airline, from the marketing strategies of owner Richard Branson to staff recruitment methods, and this had extended to the culture of the workplace.  He said:

"Virgin was sold to us as a good times employer and a sexy place to work – it’s part of the culture,"

"The managers knew the porn was going around. It was stuff that was circulating through the company. It was sent to me and I sent it on to other people – and on that basis they dismissed me."

The airline claims each employee was warned about using the company’s facilities for viewing and sharing porn, but they ignored it, and were then dismissed.  But the Transport Workers Union, which is representing the workers, says in many cases this warning was made after the alleged breaches took place, and that workers ceased their pornography-swapping practices once it was received.

Now I don’t know about your work, but you’d have to have been living on another planet to not know that watching porn at work and sending it on the company’s email system was a sacking offence.  That would be the case anywhere.  It would be damn hard to maintain a defence that you were ignorant of the consequences.

Also, I don’t think I’d be going to court over being sacked for looking at porn at work.  Who’d want their name out there in the public domain as being a connoisseur of porn, and so enthusiastic about porn that they spend work time looking at it.  I think I’d lay low and make a fresh start somewhere new.

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