Heather McCracken reports: A power company cannot impose random drug testing on its workers or discipline them for refusing a test, the Employment Court has found. The decision by Judge Graeme Colgan found a Mighty River Power worker who refused to take a drug test was acting within his rights under his collective employment agreement….
Category: Workplace
Should professors have any expectation of email privacy?
Colleen Flaherty reports on a number of cases where a professor’s email to students wound up going viral. The AAUP may want to protect “academic freedom” by treating emails as protected, but free speech advocates think it’s fair game and fair use. Read more on Slate.
Verizon Case Warns Employers Against Vague Device Policies
Law360.com reports: An Ohio federal court recently found that a former Verizon Wireless employee could pursue Stored Communications Act claims alleging her supervisor read her personal emails on a company-issued BlackBerry without consent, serving as a warning that employers risk liability under the criminal statute without clear policies on personal use of company devices and…
Judge rejects bid to block Times’ publication of deputies’ backgrounds
They lost in court last month, and now the union representing Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies has lost again in its bid to block the Los Angeles Times from publishing sheriff’s deputies’ background screening files. Jill Cowan reports: “You’d have to be blind not to recognize there’s tension between privacy, public safety and the 1st Amendment,”…