Joseph Iasenzaniro of CAE Electronics Ltd. first noticed
something was wrong at the beginning of 1999.
His employee, Dominic Petruzzi, was racking up tremendous
amounts of overtime, but couldn't seem to keep up with his work
as a technical inspector. Petruzzi also seemed to spend a lot of
time on the Internet - even though his duties did not require
Net access.
A check of CAE's computer system confirmed Iasenzaniro's
suspicions: From January to May 1999, Petruzzi had spent 329
hours - the equivalent of eight weeks of eight-hour days, five
days a week - on the Internet, visiting mostly pornographic
Web-sites.
In June 1999, Petruzzi, who had worked for light-simulator-maker
CAE since 1985, was fired.
A week ago, Petruzzi lost his appeal of the firing before a
Quebec arbitration panel, headed by Jean-Pierre Tremblay. The appeal was filed by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers
Union on behalf of Petruzzi.
In his ruling, Tremblay said CAE proved that
Petruzzi had used company time for his personal gain and had used the
Internet in a manner that was incompatible with company rules.
CAE said that during March 1999, Petruzzi used
the Internet for 120 hours - the equivalent of three weeks of work
- and claimed 123.7 hours of overtime. "That's not only a lot,
it's enormous!" Tremblay wrote.
The plaintiff claimed he had only used the
Internet for a maximum of two hours a day. To explain the discrepancy
between his numbers and CAE's figures, the plaintiff pointed out that
an Internet browser can remain open on a Web site for hours without
anyone actually looking at it.
But CAE demolished this argument by explaining
that Internet connections at CAE are terminated if more than
15 minutes go by without any activity on a Web site.
Documents filed in the case suggested that
most of Petruzzi's work did not involve his computer. Rather, it entailed
going into the plant where flight simulators are built and
double-checking electrical-mechanical systems.
Mark Quigley, an analyst with Yankee Group
Canada said that when some people get high-speed Internet access at
work, "there is a temptation to go off and do some experimenting
... but 329 hours, that's an absolutely astonishing amount of
time for anybody to spend doing anything."
CAE did not return calls yesterday.
