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employees fight back on e-mail privacy



from Wall Street Journal via NewsScan:

NLRB TAKES A NEW LOOK AT EMPLOYEE E-MAIL 

Many companies now monitor their employee's e-mail and Web activities,
assuming they have the inalienable right to ban personal or inappropriate
use of office PC. But rebellious workers are now fighting back, using the
National Labor Relations Act, a Depression-era law that sired the National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The quasi-judicial NLRB, which protects
workers' rights to organize and communicate freely with each other about
work terms and conditions, has weighed in on the employee's side in
several recent cases involving workplace electronic monitoring activities.
In one case, an employee fired for not apologizing over an e-mail he wrote
criticizing a new vacation policy was granted back pay and a chance to
rejoin his old firm (he took the pay but refused the job). In another,
Pratt & Whitney was forced to back off a total ban on using the office
e-mail system for non-business purposes. "The way people work is changing
dramatically," says NLRB associate general counsel Barry Kearney. To keep
up with the times, the NLRB is now asking branch offices to forward to
Washington headquarters any cases involving e-mail or Web use by
employees. (Wall Street Journal 25 Apr 2000)


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                             Paul Jones
   "We must protect our precious bodily fluids!" General Jack D Ripper
http://MetaLab.unc.edu/pjones/ at the Site Formerly Known As SunSITE.unc.edu
  pjones@MetaLab.unc.edu   voice: (919) 962-7600     fax: (919) 962-8071 
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