Our
Branch looks after people employed in the Telecoms industry
in the Essex (outside the M25 area), & South East Herts
(Bishop Stortford) area. Company's whose members we represent include
BT, Virgin Media, Telent, O2, Global Marine, Monteray &
Manpower.
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Welcome to The South East Anglia branch of the CWU
BT Discipline
Policy and Internet Misuse
CWU Headquarters has recently become aware
of a significant trend in discipline cases involving alleged
Internet misuse. Many of these involve members who have accessed
authorised sites, particularly "eBay" and "YouTube", and are then
alleged to have accessed inappropriate material from within those
sites.
It would be a mistake, potentially
resulting in dismissal, to believe that just because a site is
accessible and authorised, that all material that is contained on
that site or that can be accessed from that site is similarly
legitimate within the terms of BT's policies. Standards of what is
and is not appropriate to access on a BT terminal in BT time need to
be borne in mind at all times. It would be extremely ill-advised for
anyone to disregard these standards simply because one is browsing
within a site that has been freely accessed through the BT network
without the intervention of the Firewall.
The safest course of action is quite
simply not to access eBay or YouTube or similar sites during work
time or on work equipment.
CWU Headquarters is increasingly concerned
at the punitive approach taken in many areas of BT's operations with
regards to Internet and email misuse, and this has been relayed
vigorously to the company. However, the nature of some material that
has been accessed from eBay and YouTube is clearly problematic and
members need to be aware that they cannot rely on a defence that the
host site was one they were authorised to access.
