AFFIRMATIVE – EMPLOYMENT – WORKPLACE SPYING

AFFIRMATIVE — EMPLOYMENT — WORKPLACE SPYING — SIGNIFICANCE 278

WORKPLACE SPYING IS GROWING IN SIZE

WORKPLACE PRIVACY IS RAPIDLY DWINDLING

Greg Dawson; The San Diego Union-Tribune, March 27, 2000, SECTION: BUSINESS;Pg. C-1 TITLE: Freedom of speech shares workplace with the freedom to be fired; it's a ... Constitutional Catch-22 // acs-VT2001

A Big-Brotherish brew of corporate downsizing, political correctness, insecure e-mail, monitored voice mail and in-house surveillance cameras finds today's workers in an Orwellian-Dow Jonesian predicament.

They're getting rich on thriving 401(k) and company stock option plans, but at the same time their portfolios are expanding, their spheres of privacy are contracting -- a Faustian bargain for the common man.

AS LONG AS THEY CAN, EMPLOYERS WILL INVADE WORKER PRIVACY

Margaret Graham Tebo, ABA Journal, March, 2000 TITLE: No Peeking: Efforts to restrict monitoring of workers' outside activities gain favor // acs-VT2001

But some employment law practitioners contend that the real reason employers delve into the behavior of their employees is simply because they can. As laws such as the Federal Polygraph Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act limit the ways employers can investigate employees and job applicants, employers looking for alternate means of evaluating them are turning to an ever-widening range of litmus tests.

EVEN IN A TIGHT LABOR MARKET, EMPLOYERS KEEP SNOOPING INTO PRIVATE LIVES

Employers have made employee behavior a permanent obsession, says Robert Ellis Smith, publisher for 25 years of Privacy Journal, a monthly newsletter based in Providence, R.I.

Traditionally, employers lighten up and back off in good economic times, Smith says. "It has not happened during the current boom," Smith says. "I have not seen a diminution of employer concern with employee off-duty behavior."

Even privacy watchdogs like Maltby and Smith have some sympathy for employers, beset by grievances and claims from all sides.