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Employee Rights

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Abstract The issue of employers’ and employees’ rights has always brought controversy in most companies. Some rights are expressly known like the right of employees to get paid after working for the agreed period of time among others. However, there are those things done by the employers that most employees feel are too private. Employees feel that some things done by the employers are an intrusion to their privacy. This paper will discuss issues on whether the employer has a right to review the employees’ email. It will look at both the employers and the employees’ perspective and what the law says about the issue. Introduction Employees and employers have reciprocated obligations towards each other. These duties are usually expressed …show more content…

The law supports the claim that employees have a right to access employees’ emails, although most employees are of the opinion that their employers should not access their emails. The courts have not found any reasonable expectation for the employees to have privacy in the same and therefore, they have always granted permission to the employers to keep an eye on the employees’ activities as well as reviewing it. In a case of Smith v. Pillsbury Co., the plaintiff had sued the employer on the ground that he had wrongfully discharged him after the employer intercepted an email message he considered inappropriate (Jennings, 2005). Smith being an at-will kind of employee, his suit centered on whether by being discharged, it went against Pennsylvania’s public policy thereby falling into the exemption under the general rule which indicate that employees who are employed on the at-will basis can have their employment terminated any time. The defendant was given motion from dismissal of the case since it failed to state a claim. The employer was therefore found not guilty of either invading the employees’ privacy or violating public policy when he terminated smith (Wolkinson & Block, 1996). The employer had created email communication system but had told the employees that it was privileged and confidential. The employer also informed the workforce that their emails would not be intercepted

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