NFL Eagles' worker fired for Facebook update gets player's help
A few weeks ago, I wrote about an unfortunate employee of the Philadelphia Eagles, Dan Leone.
Leone was upset that the Eagles had allowed Brian Dawkins, their nasty (in a good way) defensive back, leave for the Denver Broncos.
He adorned his Facebook page with feelings: "Dan is ******* devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver...Dam Eagles are Retarded."
He was fired.
"I thought he was losing a yard of pace myself. But I wouldn't have dared put it on my Facebook page."
(Credit: CC Post406/Flickr)Now Dawkins has decided to honor Leone's Facebook faux-pas. He has offered Leone his two tickets for Denver's visit to Philadelphia, a game at which Leone will, no doubt, be greeted with garlands of flowers and chants of "for he's a jolly good fellow".
Dawkins modestly told the Philadelphia Daily News: "He was one of probably thousands and thousands of Eagles fans who felt that way. That didn't surprise me, that someone said that on their Facebook. It did surprise me that he was let go, though. That really did surprise me."
Brotherly love. It never dies. It just occasionally leaves Philadelphia.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
So, the Eagles are definitely within their rights to fire an employee for bashing them online - and they aren't the only employer, many companies have or would fire their employees for hurting the company reputation. Consider this: ten years ago if an employee walked around the street with a sign that said 'XX company sucks!" and his boss happened to drive by and see it, that person would definitely be fired. Well, fast forward to 2009, and you have the same thing with social media/online information.
Is it the correct thing for the company to do? Well, that's up for debate, and probably varies company-to-company. If they had known about all the bas publicity, perhaps the Eagles would not have made the same decision. Likewise, some companies embrace criticism (even by their own employees) and implement solutions or start discussions around the feedback. Other companies find the best solution is a no-tolerance policy and want their employees towing the company line. I don't think any one solution is best, again it is very situation.
Anyways, long story short - no lawsuit.
Granted it was a boneheaded move to post such comments in an extremely public forum such as Facebook, however, I seriously doubt that it was such an egregious offense that warranted a termination of employment.
Whatever happened to the First Amendment... freedom of speech? I worked for the USDA as a webmaster/web manager, and I'm constantly voicing my opinion as to the stupid things they do all the time, but do I get fired, no! What gives the Philadelphia Eagles the right to fire somebody solely because that person expressed one's opinion on a passionate subject?
If I was the guy, I would definitely a file a civil rights lawsuit!
Also, Pennsylvania (like every other state with the excption of Montana) is an at will employment state. You can be fired for any cause at any time as long as that cause isn't illegal. So you can be fired because the boss didn't like the color of your tie that day and its perfectly legal. There are some excpetions to this that are different on a state by state basis but these exceptions tend to be limited.
If he would of left the comment at "Dan is ******* devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver", then he'd probably still have a job, but the rest of it is probably why.
And I'm glad B Dawk did this, out of everyone here in Philly, he may possibly be the most upset about signing with Denver.
- by jc364 April 8, 2009 2:27 PM PDT
- I hear about this same issue all the time, and it all can be solved by a simple policy: "Don't post anything on the Internet that you wouldn't want everybody to see."
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(10 Comments)So if you're a teacher, don't post pics of the party you went to last night. If you're a student in politics, don't post funny pics of yourself with Hillary Clinton cut-out. And if you like your job, don't bash it on Facebook. (These all were featured in the news at some point.)
Seems simple enough, but in an age of social networking sites and Twitter, people need to make themselves aware of how public their posted information actually is.