Privacy,technology, and conflict: Emerging issues and action in workplace privacy

IV. Conclusion Growing employee awareness of the degree to which their personal privacy is compromised in the workplace, particularly with regards to information/telecommunicatton-system use and work monitoring, has created an organizational and political climate that may yield significant restrictions on employee monitoring and on how employers maintain and distribute employees’ personal information. While both federal and state governments have generally deferred to the right of the employer-as-owner to set conditions of employment that may include intrusions into employee privacy (Grodin, 1991), a number of statutory restrictions have been promulgated or proposed that will significantly expand employee privacy rights in the workplace. Additionally, it is probable that unions will aggressively assert employee privacy rights within the context of collective bargaining, potentially using employee dissatisfaction with privacy intrusions as a basis for organizing nonunion firms.