Employee Surveillance and Privacy

Employee Surveillance

• Employers can use video cameras to monitor employees as long as they have a legitimate business reason and inform employees.
• Employers can monitor phone conversations, texts, and direct messages sent from their telecommunications devices, provided they have compelling business reasons and inform employees.
• Some countries have laws that restrict employers from intercepting wire, oral, or electronic communications, unless employees are told not to make personal calls or send text messages from their business phones.

Email, Internet, and Computer Use

• Employers can monitor employees' online activities and discipline or fire them based on that information.
• Employers can create electronic communication policies that limit employees' internet use.
• Companies can ban social media at work.

Access to Personnel Files

• HR departments are responsible for maintaining personnel files and safeguarding their flow to prevent identity theft.
• Legislation permits employees to inspect their own personnel files.

Job Protection Rights

Wrongful Discharge

• Wrongful discharge refers to the illegal termination of an employee.

Whistle-Blowing

• Whistle-blowing involves complaints to governmental agencies by employees about their employers' illegal or immoral acts or practices.

Implied Contract

• If an employer makes an implied promise of a condition, such as job security, courts have generally prohibited the employer from terminating the employee without first exhausting the conditions of the contract.

Explicit Contracts

• Explicit employment contracts are formal written agreements that grant employees and employers agreed-upon employment benefits and privileges.
• Explicit contracts normally state the period of employment, terms and conditions of employment, and severance provisions.
• When an employee has an explicit contract, they cannot be dismissed at will.
• Explicit contracts may include nondisclosure of information agreements and noncompete agreements.
• Explicit contracts are enforceable in court when either the employee or employer violates any provisions of the agreement.

Constructive Discharge

• Constructive discharge refers to an employee's voluntary termination of their employment due to harsh, unreasonable employment conditions placed on them by the employer.

Discharge as a Result of Retaliation

• Some employment laws prohibit employers from retaliating against employees when they exercise their rights.

Discharge Acts

• Some acts require organizations with more than 100 employees to give employees 60 days' notice of any closure or layoff affecting 50 or more full-time employees.

Privacy Rights

Substance Abuse and Drug Testing

• In the private sector, drug testing is largely regulated by individual states.
• Federal regulations and laws restrict drug testing.
• Private employers have a right to require employees to submit to drug tests, except for unionized workforces, where drug testing must be negotiated by their unions.
• Impairment testing measures whether an employee is alert enough to work.