To what degree can employees express discontent with employer decisions without being counselled or disciplined.

A former Queensland public servant has failed to stop disciplinary action over firey messages he exchanged with colleagues on the Signal app over plans to close his business unit, including saying he was ready to “b-tch-flog” a female boss and use a piece of “4×2 with rusty nails”.

The 42-year emailed colleagues on November 28, 2024, advising them to join him on Signal to hide discussions from management about fighting the unit’s possible closure.

In it he warned, while he may be “paranoid”, “I’m assuming this email will be read and passed on topside” and told colleagues to join him on Signal as he believed messages would remain private. So much for that belief.

The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission said:

“I understand that [the public servant] may have been dissatisfied with consultation processes regarding proposed changes to his work unit and that he was seeking to discuss a response to this with his work group… I also understand [his] distress that messages he thought were private, have been made available to his previous department and have become evidence upon which discipline findings have been made against him.”

“…[m]essages are only private until they are shared or found, this is why well-worn phrases such as, ‘Write everything as though it will be read out in court’ are so often shared in workplaces…”

In January 2025 the inspector transferred to the Department of Transport and Main Roads. His previous department then found the November 28 email on his laptop.

The Department launched an investigation and located the Signal messages. The Signal exchanges revealed the inspector’s increasingly hostile messages about his executive director who was considering closure of the business unit.

In a November 29, 2024, exchange the inspector discussed “bombarding an… [HR] employee with ‘inane HR requests'” and saying they should “bombard” the executive with requests “forecasting a loss of confidence in your leaders and with creating ‘HR nightmares'”.

By December 13 he was sending a Jabba the Hut meme about the executive director labelled with the words: “Just sitting back on a Friday afternoon, guzzling a vat of chardy, eyeing off the hapless beast she’s about to swallow whole, thinking about the human detritus and carnage she’s caused during the week. . . and thinking. . . life is good at the top!”.

On January 13 he said he would “bitch flog” the executive director and asked: “Are you allowed to use a piece of 4×2 with rusty nails projecting out?”.

This followed the department deciding on December 20 not to close the unit.

The Commission held that the inspector accepted that he had engaged in inappropriate and/or unprofessional communications using his departmental email account and participated and/or engaged in inappropriate communications with co-workers.

However, he challenged the decision that this warranted disciplinary action, arguing his actions had been “a temporary lapse in judgement” or “a poor attempt to vent”.

He maintained that the department had breached his privacy, caused him personal harm and isolation, and failed to pay heed to his mitigating actions and possibility for rehabilitation.

The employee argued the department’s disciplinary decision-maker should have recused herself because they had clashed when he served as a union delegate and that the department executive examining the business closure had been “malicious” in initiating the disciplinary proceedings.

He set out his preferred rehabilitation action, “including an apology, post-conduct training records, reflective journal, referee reports, and a voluntary performance improvement plan”.

The Commission rejected his arguments against the disciplinary findings and that his actions had been temporary, noting the messaging occurred over several weeks.

As a principal inspector he had been “tasked with ensuring safe and healthy workplaces” and as a highly experienced employee he would have “understood such ‘venting’ was not appropriate…(he) appears to be of the view that by accepting the conduct, once it was raised with him, providing an apology and explanation for the conduct and rehabilitative actions he has taken to correct his conduct” that should have been enough to bring the disciplinary action to an end” the Commission said.

“The message exchange, undertaken in a private capacity but amongst work colleagues, included body-shaming and encouragement of gendered violence toward women in leadership roles”, the commissioner said.

The Commission agreed his actions provided grounds for disciplinary action, and the inspector could raise submissions about rehabilitation, mitigation and the proportionality of the penalty with his new department when it decided on the penalty to apply.

Lessons for employers

Employers should encourage employees that have grievances to raise them directly with the employer. Undermining management decisions by communicating on outside platforms can lead to employees feeling bullied and humiliated. Employers who are made aware of employee’s undermining management decisions secretively can counsel and discipline employees for failing to communicate in a courteous and respectful manner, a fundamental obligation in the workplace.