Photog suspended for pic of dude who lost his pants on ski lift -is that OK?

By now, the picture of guy who got "pants"ed by a Vail chairlift on New Year's has made the rounds. (see The Smoking Gun, Huff Po, or the link below)

Today, the photog told his side of the story.
http://snowboarding.transworld.net/2009/01/06/the-story-behind-the-vail-chairlift-photo/

Can his employer legally suspend the photographer? On what grounds? Paranoia?

 

Anyone can be suspended or fired with or without cause, unless they're covered by a contract that specifies otherwise. The only exceptions are for reasons the of race/gender/age discrimination. Is it fair that this guy got suspended? Nope. But they can do it.

 

If he is employed to take nice photos of people skiing on the mountain for PR purposes, I'd fire him too.

He wasn't fired by the paper. He was fired by the ski resort.

 

The photographer took the shot with his own camera while off-duty.
The photo was not exploitative.
The victim isn't identifiable.
The accident took place in public.

Why kill the messenger?

Vail should be happy the guy wasn't hurt.

 

The photog was an idiot who forgot who he was working for.

 

Uh yep. Hit the bricks. Sorry.

rb

 

Yes and thrilled that people are seeing evidence of their skiers being depantsed.

 

Hope the guy who got depantsed didn't get frostbitten.

 

Perhaps that link should have carried a NSFW warning?

 

Seems to me the guy is proud of the photo and happy that it got enough of a reaction that he is losing his job over it. He isn't whining about how "unfair" he thinks his situation is.

I say that's a great attitude, and hopefully he lands on his feet somewhere.

Unlike the upside-down depantsed guy.

 

ringer, not to pick on you, but it bears repeating:

Except for cases of discrimination and other narrow criteria, employers generally can discipline an employee for whatever they want unless prohibited by a contract or they're protected by a union, as OTD said.

The biggest mistake people make on this is the "free speech" claim. Take it to extremes: If you go into your blog and write that your company is terrible and your manager sucks, you think that speech is protected? Or, simply, you go to said boss and say, "Fuck you!"?

You say -- or in this case, shoot a picture of -- something your employer doesn't like, and the employer has a right to do whatever they want, pretty much.

 

I'm confused: Who does he work for? The Vail paper or the ski resort?

If it's the paper, then it's bullshit to suspend him.
If it's the ski resort, well, I understand him being suspended.