BF2S Forums Employee/Employer rights and respect.

Employer has/should have more rights (decisions relating work).
There should be/is respect between them.
Only spy at work since the employee needs to work and not sleep or visit porn sites during his shift.

how funny is this timing... on yahoo's front page:

7 ways your email can get you fired

and this one is crazy:

employers watching employees who work from home

Last edited by steelie34 (2008-08-07 08:13:52)

As some one who works as a system admin I can tell you from experience that I'm on Steelie's side here.  We don't automatically assume all employees are doing wrong, but we do monitor the network for strange activity.  We have a network monitoring box from Cymphonix that allows us to block web sites by name, content, and various other attributes.  we can monitor bandwidth and even determine whether the bandwidth is downloads (and what type) from what site the traffic is coming from, and pretty much anything else we want to monitor.  We even regularly get requests from department supervisors to provide them with reports detailing the web sites and other network activity of their employees.

Now don't get me wrong, most supervisors don't mind a little personal web browsing, or checking of ones e-mail, but if it is excessive, the situation is discussed with them.  By that same token we also monitor the IT staff, and have from time to time had to check out suspicious behavior in a covert manner.

Scorpion, the thing you don't realize is that how the issue is handled is done on a case by case basis.  You say you would be upset if things were done covertly, well some people will become hostile if they are asked to see the contents of their computer because they feel accused; and usually react in this way because they have been doing wrong and got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Now I also noticed that you are in the UK, but in the US fights over worker privacy have gone as far as the Supreme Court, and it was ruled that a worker really doesn't have a right to privacy, other than in the bathroom.  Everything they do on their computer is subject to oversight by the employer, including reading their e-mails, any chat programs, and the contents of their hard drive.

If people are doing their job, and not doing things they shouldn't be, then monitoring of their activities should not reveal anything odd.  Even then, if an oddity is discovered, if it is a one time anomaly or only occurs very far apart, most companies wouldn't think much about it.  However, when anomalies are discovered on a regular basis, and that employees position may be within the area of sensitive information, or knowing the personality of the employee may result in a bad situation if confronted, covert actions are a necessity.

Scorpion0x17 wrote:

First see http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=106532

Now, as you'll see that thread got sidetracked (mostly, ok, entirely, by me) into a discussion about employer/employee rights and respect in the workplace - and that is the discussion I'd like to continue here, if I may...

NOTE I think we should move this away from the specific of the above mentioned thread and discuss 'in general' not 'this specific case'...

So, what do you think?

Who has the greater rights? The Employer or the Employee?

Should there mutual respect between employee and employer?

Or does an employer have the right to spy on their employees?

The answer to your first question depends on where you live.  In America, the employer definitely has more rights.

There should be mutual respect, but it's not as common as you might think.

In America, the employer has the right to do a lot of things that might seem unethical -- spying being one of them.  Now, if you're asking if I think they should have that right, my answer is, "within reason."

The problem is that employers in America often use the leverage they're given by the law to find reasons to fire someone when they want to downsize.  Instead of only laying off people that actually cause problems for the company, they often go the extra mile to find out who they can fire to cut costs.  A case is usually developed by "looking" for trouble.  I've had a few ex-coworkers get busted like this, and it definitely has lowered my opinion of my employer.

The problem is that there is a fine line between unethical and illegal.  It's hard to devise laws that adequately recognize this difference, so we often overshoot in one direction or the other.  Sometimes, we give the employer too much power, and other times it's the employee.  More often than not, however, it favors the employer.

For the most part, I fully support firing people over issues of performance, but it sickens me when someone is let go right before they earn a company pension.

The employEE has way more right than the employER in all Western countries.

Fortunately for most employERs, most employEEs are pretty ignorant of their rights.

Employers constantly infringe on employees' rights and get away with it, because most employees don't know what their rights are.



EDIT: If you're referring to the case in the other thread, according to British law you would still need to prove that individual put it there in order to sack/disclipline them. From what I read, the company could be facing a hefty fine as they have illegal software on their system. Play it very carefully.

Last edited by RastaBlasta (2008-08-07 19:32:22)