Forward Planning: Workplace privacy is at risk everywhere

You hear employees complaining about their managers snooping around looking for private information, opening the employees' desks when they are not around, listening to their phone conversations, sometimes even taping the phone lines, reading their e-mail, inquiring about medical or financial records - all without prior consent from the employee - or simply asking another employee to spy on his/her colleague.

According to a 1999 survey made by the American Management Association International, two-thirds of U.S. businesses eavesdrop on their employees either trough phone, video taping, e-mail, Internet files or other employees.

Monitoring is sometimes necessary for protecting the business and reducing liabilities provided that the company has a clear written policy, the employees are informed about it and it's done in a proper and ethical way.

The main problem with employee monitoring is when it goes overboard and becomes excessive where no law can protect the employee and his/her privacy.

One Federal law protects employees under the Electronic Communication Privacy Act forbidding employers from eavesdropping on phone conversations and e-mail if it's known to be personal.
The vast majority of the 100 million American employees are governed by a doctrine called "employment at will."

This doctrine gives employers the unfettered right to fire workers at any time, for any reason, whether grave or frivolous. Employees can be fired for no reason at all.

Every year an estimated 200,000 employees are unjustly fired in the U.S. It is the prevalence of the employment-at-will doctrine that empowers employers to impose unwarranted urine tests and other kinds of intrusive "personality" and "integrity" checks on their employees.

The power to fire at will permits employers to suppress their employees' right to free speech. There are federal and state laws that prohibit discrimination against individuals on the basis of race, religion, sex, national or ethnic origin, age and disability.

However, these laws require only that employees be treated equally. So employers are free to do whatever they wish to their employees as long as they do so in a non-discriminatory manner. There are very few other federal and state laws providing some kind of protection against specific abuses, such as urine and polygraph testing and retaliation against whistle blowers.

The fundamental human rights of free expression, privacy and due process are still largely unprotected in the American workplace.

However, there are three categories of employees who are not governed by employment at-will: federal, state and local government employees are protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments which prohibit depriving the worker of 'life, liberty and property' without due process of law.

The second category is union members, but today only 20 per cent of American workers belong to unions. Membership numbers to the unions have been in the decline for the last few years.
The third one is contract employees: senior executives, performers, athletes and some other well-situated employees, who work under individual employment contract providing protection against unjust dismissal.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is an independent organisation dedicated to protecting the civil liberties of all Americans, believe that the unfair employment-at-will doctrine should be abolished.

Employees should be fired only for just cause and every employee facing termination entitled to a hearing including the right to confront witnesses, bring evidence and have an adequate representation.

The Congress has passed the Employee Polygraph Protection Act that ended the 'lie detector' abuse in the private workplace which in the past had branded around 300,000 employees per year as 'liars'. Some states now prohibit these indiscriminate tests and video taping in areas designed for the health and comfort of the employees.

Just as laws exist to prohibit employment discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion and, in some places, sexual orientation, ACLU feels that new laws are needed to protect against discrimination based on employees private lifestyle preferences and habits.

The battle goes on: people will always keep fighting for more rights, recognition and respect. The reason for this article came from a close relative of mine who complained this has been happening in her office. These unsavoury practices seem to have found their way in our local workplace.