Cameras, emails, text messages, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), social media…

“Privacy is Dead.  Get Used to it.”
— Scott McNeely, President, Sun Microsystems

ABOUT THE LECTURE

Ten years ago, we were debating whether privacy in the workplace would survive.  That battle is over.  Privacy lost.  Over 90% of employers now read employees' e-mail, examine the Internet sites they visit, watch them on hidden video cameras, and scrutinize the contents of their computers' hard drives.  No attempt is made is distinguish between your business e-mail and the e-mail you sent to your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife during your lunch. In addition to official electronic surveillance, IT professionals often scrutinize other employees' computers for fun with little or no oversight from the employer. And worse, you can be fired without any legal remedy from an employer who is offended by the content of your emails or text messages.

The question today is whether privacy in our private lives will disappear as well. As company-issued laptop computers become many people's personal computer as well, even e-mail sent from your home is scrutinized by your employer, along with your bank records and personal correspondence. Employer-issued cell phones with GPS technology enable employers to track employees during their private lives. With the growth of social networking sites, employers can read our “diaries” and fire anyone whose political opinions or social lives they disapprove of.

Is it legal for your employer to fire you for writing a letter to the editor? Or for putting the “wrong” candidate's bumper sticker on your car? If you answered no, prepare to be shocked.

Americans assume that their basic rights, such as privacy and freedom of speech, remain in force when they go to work. But what if your boss checked your personal e-mail to see if you were really working over the weekend? Or fired you after discovering you had a disease?

Workers' rights advocate Lewis Maltby shares dozens of stories of employees who have been fired or harassed unfairly—but legally. Consider:

• A man denied a job at a retail chain for failing a psychological test that probed his sex life, his religious beliefs, and even his bathroom rituals
• A group of women at a storage company with no legal recourse after discovering a hidden camera installed by their manager in the women's restroom
• A longtime employee dismissed for having a beer after work, because his boss believed drinking was a sin

Over the last twenty years, Maltby has heard hundreds of stories just like these. His program addresses a wide range of privacy and technology issues in and out of the workplace including Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Cameras (including hidden cameras in locker rooms and bathrooms), emails, text messages, airport electronic strip searches, credit histories, psychological tests, drug tests, bumper stickers (the wrong ones), biometric security scans and social media.Maltby also addresses how the astonishing technology developments of recent years have created a world in which personal privacy may disappear forever.

Maltby's lecture will change the way you think about privacy, technology and freedom of speech. His powerpoint program illuminates your risks and clarifies your rights in our world where little is secret, even if you think it is. There is a silver lining, however. As Maltby shows, there are steps that we all can take to restore our rights and to navigate a safer path in this age of surveillance.

ABOUT LEWIS MALTBY

Lewis Maltby is president and founder of the National Workrights Institute and former Director of Employment Rights for the ACLU. His book, Can They Do That: Retaking Our Fundamental Rights in the Workplace (Portfolio January 2010). He has testified before Congress many times on employment issues and appeared on “60 Minutes,” “Larry King Live,” and “Oprah.” His views on employment law have been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, and other leading publications. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Visit: www.workrights.org/ to learn more about the National Wordrights Instutitute and www.cantheydothatbook.com to download an excerpt from the book.

Praise for Can They Do That?

"Can They Do That? is the question I asked again and again while working in low-wage jobs for my book Nickel and Dimed, and Lewis Maltby is the person I eventually turned to for answers. His new book brilliantly lays out the bitter truth: that the American workplace is a dictatorship where workers have few, if any, rights. Fortunately, it also contains some excellent ideas on how to fight for human rights at work."
—Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

“Lew Maltby has written a very important book about a subject that has not received nearly the attention it deserves. Congress needs to do more to protect the rights of the American worker. This book can provide a road map.” 
—Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ)

“Can They Do That? tells Americans the sad truth that their constitutional rights disappear when they go to work and what we must do to end this injustice.”
—Nadine Strossen, former president, ACLU; professor of law, New York Law School

“An important book from a tireless champion of workplace human rights.”
—Paul S. Miller, former president, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; director, Disability Studies Program, and Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law, University of Washington School of Law

“This is a cogent and compelling look at the issues involved as well as a guide to the principles and practices that would make America more authentically and richly democratic. 
—Richard S. Parker, president, Americans for Democratic Action

“With hard-hitting prose and vivid true-life examples, Lewis Maltby lashes out at employer violations of what most workers assume are their inalienable rights. . . . Existing law doesn't prevent employers from firing employees for expressing a political opinion in a personal blog, spying on them in company restrooms, or refusing to hire them because they failed a defective drug test, credit check, or personality profile.”
—Theodore J. St. Antoine, Degan Professor Emeritus of Law and former dean, University of Michigan Law School

“Can They Do That? gives Americans important information they need to know about their rights in the workplace. In clear language, Lewis Maltby unravels the sometimes confusing web of laws and regulations that help shape what happens to employees in America.”
—Fred Feinstein, former general counsel, National Labor Relations Board