A Telstra employee has been disciplined over using his Twitter and personal blog accounts to make satirical posts impersonating Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.
Leslie Nassar, whose Twitter account was called “Fake Stephen Conroy,” said on a Twitter post that he had been sacked by the telco for making the posts. But the telco has denied the charge, telling the Sydney Morning Herald that “we have started a disciplinary process against him”.
But Nassar is adamant that the company attempted to fire him, saying that “they were 100% clear with me this morning”.
“It contravened what they called the ‘Telstra values clause’, and the Telstra values clause basically states that you don’t say anything about Telstra publicly as an employee unless you’ve got prior permission,” Nassar also told smh.com.au.
“So if you’ve got a comment or a personal position, you can’t mention it.”
But Telstra says that it has disciplined Nassar not because of the Twitter posts, but due to unauthorised public statements about Telstra and a company employee.
Hugh Bradlow, Telstra’s chief technology officer, has written in a statement that Nassar had neither “the credentials to be authoritative nor the manners to speak to his colleagues”. Bradlow has also claimed that the decision to discipline Nassar was his alone.
“Leslie Nassar, who recently was ousted as being the ‘Fake Stephen Conroy’, has tweeted today that he has been fired,” Bradlow wrote.
“Until now I have stayed away from the online flurry around Leslie’s blogs and tweets, but Leslie is accusing me of being an ‘enforcer’ and a ‘puppet’ and I think it is time I set the record straight.”
“My view – which was shared with Leslie – was simply that he should stop the Twitter because it was ill advised to be doing something that could be confused with his job at Telstra.”
The objection likely refers to a Twitter post Nassar made about Telstra social media adviser Mike Hickinbotham, who wrote in a statement that Telstra did not try to stop Nassar from making “Fake Stephen Conroy” posts.
“I was fine with your NWAT double-speak, but f*** you if you think I’m standing for that,” Nassar replied to him on Twitter.
Nassar has said that he regrets his harsh language, but that he thinks the message was appropriate.
“I did the right thing. When they asked me to stop, I stopped. And then they came out with this statement saying that I hadn’t been told to stop and then they continued to perpetuate it,” he said.
“I do believe in having a level of loyalty to a company, but when it’s clear that that loyalty isn’t reciprocated to the employees then it’s not really a company that I want to be working for.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
