A Malaysian worker who was fired after being caught using terms such as “big boss”, “blur” and “teloq” to describe senior company officers in emails later won more than RM66,000 after the Industrial Court ruled that her dismissal was unfair.
The case was recently highlighted by human resources practitioner Khairul Atlas, who shared details from the Industrial Court judgment.
According to the ruling, the worker had been employed as the personal assistant to the company chairman and had no previous complaints or performance issues before the incident.
Emails were discovered during a separate investigation
Reported by mStar, the company had not initially been investigating the worker.
The original probe concerned the alleged leak of confidential information from a board of directors meeting involving another employee.
However, the worker’s name surfaced during the investigation, prompting the company to examine emails exchanged between her and three close colleagues.
That was when the company discovered conversations containing remarks about senior management, including the words “big boss”, “blur” and “teloq”.
The company accused her of misusing its computer and email system to make insulting remarks about senior officers, claiming her actions undermined management authority.
However, the officers being referred to were not specifically named in the emails.
Worker said it was just ‘tea time gossip’
The worker admitted sending the emails.
She said “big boss” referred to the Managing Director, while “blur” could have referred to two other senior officers.
However, she could not remember who she meant when she used the word “teloq”.
She defended the conversations as nothing more than “tea time gossip” between four close friends who were venting about work related stress and frustrations.
The emails were not sent to other employees or directly to management.
She also argued that the conversations had no impact on her work performance.
No previous complaints about her work
During the proceedings, the court also took note of evidence given by the company’s own witnesses.
They acknowledged that there had been no formal complaints about the worker before the show cause letter was issued.
Her work performance had also never been questioned.
The court heard that no specific investigation was conducted after she submitted her explanation and that no Domestic Inquiry was held.
It was also revealed that the identities of the senior officers allegedly being insulted were largely inferred from the context of the email conversations.
Court says gossiping is different from directly insulting someone
The court acknowledged that the language used by the worker was rude and inappropriate.
However, it also drew a distinction between directly insulting a senior officer and privately gossiping about them among colleagues.
The court then considered whether dismissal was a proportionate punishment for what she had done.
Ultimately, all three charges against the worker were found to have not been successfully proven.
The Industrial Court ruled that her dismissal was without just cause or excuse.
Awarded more than RM66K
Despite ruling in her favour, the court did not completely excuse her conduct.
Her backwages were reduced by 40% because she had still used the company’s email system to gossip and make inappropriate remarks.
She was ultimately awarded RM47,188.80 in backwages and RM19,662 in compensation in lieu of reinstatement.
This brought the total amount awarded to RM66,850.80.
Khairul stressed that the case was shared for general information and should not be treated as legal advice.
He added that employment disputes can differ depending on the facts, available evidence, employment contracts, company policies and any applicable collective agreements.
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