British people are funny.

One of its biggest unions opposes an employer ban on using social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook at work.

The Trades Union Congress, which represents 6.5 million workers in Beatles land, says workers should be allowed to have a little fun chatting on their breaks.

God knows, no responsible union would encourage such frivolous activity during work time. That employees might violate this tenet could be a real concern.

But then the union says employers should not use these sites as a basis to hire or not hire  people.

That's not living in the real world. If someone is so immature to use their MySpace page as their trumpet for drug use or other dangerous activities, I think and employer is obligated to consider that as a hiring issue.

I have a MySpace page for the express purpose of background access to people we write about. 

If I get a new message, I might glance at it at work, but the site is fraught with distraction so I don't hang out there.

Young people do. And it could lead to their downfall. Unions should be more interested in protecting their employees, not setting them up for failure.

Posted by Steve E. Swenson