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From: peterm@rwing.uucp (Peter Marshall)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Is Employer Monitoring of Operators Legal?
Message-ID: <16044@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 13 Jan 91 02:25:43 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 36, Message 6 of 11


Responding to MiKe Miller's 1/11 post and the Moderator's reply in
vol.11, #29; this issue may be an old one, but it's by no means stale,
and the overall climate surrounding it is both somewhat changed and
certainly not stale itself.  Somewhat contrary to the appearnce
suggested by the Moderator's initial reply, this is a not un-complex
question, and "answers" are not simply straight-forward.

Mr. Miller obviously has what is fundamentally a legal question here;
thus, would probably be best advised to do the legal research called
for or to consult competent legal counsel to get a "true answer, not
an opinion." Despite the qualifiers in the initial response Mr.
Miller's gotten here, he has indeed gotten himself "an opinion," of
course. E.g., it is "apparently" legal, and "I do not believe...."

Further, what "all telcos" do maybe rather irrelevant to Mr. Miller's
situation, and it is also important to point out that "performance"
monitoring (better called electronic workplace surveillance) does not
equate with *all*monitoring. One must also note the absence of any
sort of legal provisions in the original reply.

Relevant variables not noted so far might include whether the
workplace in question is unionized or not and the not-unimportant
question of whether the *callers* involved will have prior notice as
to monitoring of what by definition is also *their* communication. Mr.
Miller may also want to note, e.g., the CA PUC rules on such
monitoring, as an interesting example of legality and absence thereof,
and a recently released CWA-sponsored study that purportedly found
higher incidence of stress and stress-related illness in monitored
employees.


Peter Marshall