Reference no: EM132225286

It’s legal: Memo to Salem State College employee defending video surveillance

Maybe it was bad employee relations, but it was legal. That’s what your school’s lawyers told you, as human resources director for Salem State college, after you passed along an angry memo from an employee in the college’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC).

In her memo, Nancy Kim expressed her horror and outrage at discovering, too late, that when she slipped behind a divider after hours to change from her office attire into her jogging outfit for the trek home, she had been recorded on videotape by cameras installed in the department for security reasons. The SBDC houses a lot of expensive computer equipment, and your security department believed that the video surveillance was warranted; they had suspicions about a night intruder. However, no one informed the employees who work in the department that the cameras had been installed and were operating 24 hours a day. Your security department may have thought that was a good strategy for catching any dishonest employees red-handed, so to speak. But in light of what happened to Kim, it just seems like a rude and embarrassing misjudgment.

Kim was demanded an apology and $5,000 in damages for the dignity she suffered. Although she hasn’t yet contacted her union representatives or a lawyer, she does hint that those will be her next steps. Your legal department insists she has no claim; employees relinquish their privacy rights the minute they step into the workplace. The only federal limiting employer surveillance is the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which prohibits employers from listening in on spoken personal conversations. Otherwise, they can tally phone numbers and call duration, videotape employees, and review e-mail, Internet access, and computer files. Only the state of Connecticut has passed a law also limiting employer surveillance in bathrooms and other areas designated for “health and personal conflict.”

The college’s attorneys have provided you with a copy of an article quoting Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of Privacy Journal. He says, “Employees are at the mercy of employers…. There is no protection in the workplace.” According to the article, 63 percent of employers in an American Management Association survey of 900 midsize and large companies use some kind of employee surveillance, and 23 percent of them don’t tell workers. Moreover, 16 percent use video cameras for their employee monitoring.

Legally, it sounds as if the college in the right. But personally, you can’t help but agree that Kim was wronged. Nevertheless, the legal department wants to discourage Kim from any form of litigation or pursuit of the case with her union representatives or the Massachusetts Labor Relations Committee. In hopes of downplaying the college’s concern about the incident, the legal department wants you to handle the response. Go ahead and apologize, say the lawyers, but don’t invite further action. This is not going to be easy, you think with a sigh.

Your task: Write an answering memo Nancy Kim, denying her request for monetary compensation and whether you will offer anything to soften the blow of the bad news.