Workplace Privacy

Employers everywhere today must delicately balance the need to maintain a safe and proper workplace with employees rights and the risk of liability. The fact that new technologies make it easier for employers to monitor their employees whereabouts, communications, and activities only serves to make the issue more acute. Now, in this collection of essays by outstanding scholars and practitioners in U.S. labour law and practice, employers and their legal counsel will find a broad array of important contributions to the law and study of workplace privacy. Based on papers delivered at the 58th annual labour conference of the New York University Center on Labor and Employment Law, this book reflects and analyzes recent developments, providing the best comprehensive work on U.S. workplace privacy. How far should employers be allowed to go in monitoring employers? Where do employers rights to run their businesses end and employees privacy rights begin? Is the existing law sufficient to resolve recurring conflicts? These are among the big questions tackled in these articles. Among the many specific issues covered are the following: use of global positioning systems (GPS) in tracking employees; background checking for job applicants; email monitoring; physical monitoring of employees; scope and lawfulness of so-called lawful activity laws; employer involvement in employees nonworkplace behaviour (e.g., drug testing); employees rights of association; regulation of fraternizing and dating among employees; employee privacy issues in employer-union bargaining; privacy issues in public sector employment; privacy issues and threats of terrorism; and efforts by employers to verify employees nationality and immigration status. Authors pay special attention to fast-break developments such as in the extraterritorial reach of the European Union s data protection directive and the current status of the U.S. National Labor Relations Board s Register-Guard decision. A special feature is a very early draft of a chapter of the forthcoming Restatement (Third) of Labor and Employment Law made available through the graces of the American Law Institute on the U.S. common law of employee privacy rights. As always, this important annual publication offers definitive current scholarship in its theme area of labour and employment law. As such, it will be of inestimable value to practitioners, government officials, academics, and others interested in developments in employment and labour relations law and practice.

In recent years, new and more intrusive surveillance technology has found its way into workplaces. New medical tests provide detailed information about workers' biology that was previously unthinkable. An increasing number of employees work under camera surveillance. At the same time, computers allow for a detailed monitoring of our interactions with machines, and all this information can be electronically stored in an easily accessible format. What is happening in our workplaces? Has the trend towards more humane workplaces been broken? From an ethical point of view, which types and degrees of surveillance are acceptable, and which are not? From a policy point of view, what methods can be used to regulate the use of surveillance technology in workplaces? These are some of the questions that have driven the research reported in this book. Written by an interdisciplinary group of researchers in Computer Ethics, Medical Ethics and Moral Philosophy, this book provides a broad overview that covers both empirical and normative aspects of workplace privacy.

Privacy in the Workplace is a practical guide that clearly explains your privacy compliance responsibilities and even instructs on steps to take once a breach has occurred. In addition to guidance on current employment-related privacy issues, the Second Edition goes further to provide complete coverage of your responsibilities in complying with Canadian privacy laws, with tools and tips for creating an effective data management program across all areas of your organization including sales, human resources, marketing, finance and the Board of Directors. Topics include: Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and reviews of the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) in BC and Alberta; How to avoid being accused of a privacy breach and steps to take once a breach has occurred; Protecting customer, client and supplier information; Essential information about the Personal Health Information Act (PHIA); Technology and privacy - a guide to sound online marketing practices; and Highlights of significant cases and their impact on Canadian privacy law.

The third of three issues on workers' privacy in industrialized countries, this volume is devoted to testing of workers and job applicants to detect alcohol and drug abuse, HIV/AIDS, genetic abnormalities, psychological characteristics and honesty.

"The work is a practical guide to privacy issues in the Canadian workplace. It examines all aspects of an employer’s acquisition, retention and dissemination of information about employees, while considering the competing interests at play in the employment relationship. It offers guidance to employers in establishing privacy-related policies and practices, and also serves as a valuable resource for employees who wish to challenge employer practices."--pub. desc.

Hiring, firing, retirement, human rights complaints and education, harassment, privacy and personal information, pay equity, employee health, benefits.

"Law can be viewed as a body of rules and legal sanctions that channel behavior in socially desirable directions - for example, by encouraging individuals to take proper precautions to prevent accidents or by discouraging competitors from colluding to raise prices. The incentives created by the legal system are thus a natural subject of study by economists. Moreover, given the importance of law to the welfare of societies, the economic analysis of law merits prominent treatment as a subdiscipline of economics. This two volume Handbook is intended to foster the study of the legal system by economists. The two volumes form a comprehensive and accessible survey of the current state of the field. Chapters prepared by leading specialists of the area. Summarizes received results as well as new developments."--[Source inconnue].