Video Surveillance in the Workplace

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Should an employer be allowed to conduct video surveillance of its employees in the workplace? No, say employees, who feel that such surveillance violates their right to privacy. Yes, say employers, who argue that employees have no right to privacy in the employer's workplace, and the employer's need to prevent misconduct and maximize productivity outweigh the privacy interests of employees. This paper will examine this question, focusing on the current state of the law (both federal and state) and the continuing political and moral debate among labor and business groups.

Employers utilize video surveillance for a variety of reasons. Situations that require scrutiny include suspicion of drug use, conducting personal business on company time, revealing trade secrets, surfing the Internet, and harassment issues (sexual and otherwise). For example, an employer could institute surveillance to ensure against a ôhostile workplace,ö one of the causes of action under a sexual harassment suit. Similarly, surveillance could be used to ferret out instances of racial discrimination committed by employees but actionable against the employer. Employers in heavily regulated industries, such as nuclear power plants, also utilize videotaping to demonstrate compliance to federal authorities (Hymowitz 1).

More common, however, are instances where employers utilize video surveillance as part of an effort to increase productivity. Ironically, video surveillance may result in reduced produ

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station continuously without constitutional insult, it could choose instead to carry out that lawful task by means of unconcealed video cameras not equipped with microphones, which record only what the human eye could observe.ö Employees can find some protection from video surveillance in other parts of the federal code. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), for example, bars employers from interfering in certain protected activities related to the formation and management of labor unions. Courts have consistently held that video surveillance, even without the audio component, violates the NLRA because it tends to interfere, restrain, or coerce employees. However, the union must show that the video surveillance actually interfered, restrained, or coerced employees to succeed on this issue in federal court (Hymowitz 12). Moreover, the NLRB has decreed that video surveillance is a mandatory issue for collective bargaining. In other words, an employer cannot unilaterally impose video surveillance over the objections of its union. An employer can only gain that right via a collective bargaining agreement. Unions have permitted some video surveillance, but only in limited circumstances and with significant restrictions. As th
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Approximate Word count = 2461
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

Video Surveillance in the Workplace

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