No privacy for union workers

[Kevin Robert Dean <qualiall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is some scary shit!  Why can't we get court ordered searches for the
secret meetings of CEOs?
   -- KD


>From Progressive Review e-zine....

THE WAR AGAINST US

MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE: Northwest Airlines last week began
court-authorized searches of the home computers of between 10 and 20 flight
attendants, looking for private e-mail and other evidence that the employees
helped to organize a sick-out at the airline over the New Year's holiday.
The search has since been suspended pending a temporary settlement of the
airline's lawsuit against Teamsters Local 2000, the union representing
11,000 flight attendants. But privacy advocates and attorneys not involved
with the case say Northwest's action may embolden other companies to more
aggressively monitor what employees say and do online from their home
computers . . . Companies have rarely sought to search the home computers of
their employees. In the past, most such searches usually have been limited
to cases involving workers who've been accused of stealing company files,
passing on trade secrets to competitors or using insider information to
profit on the trading of company stock.

.. . . The threat of a court-authorized search of home computers has already
had one measurable impact: Postings to a rank-and-file Web site that was
openly critical of both union management and the company have slowed to a
trickle. Asked why the union didn't fight harder against the effort to
search employees' home computers, Billie Davenport, president of Teamsters
Local 2000, said the union complied with the discovery request because it
felt it had nothing to hide.

MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE http://www.startribune.com/stOnLine/
FLIGHT ATTENDANTS' WEB SITE http://www.nwaflightattendants.com/

Kevin | Buffalo, NY
ICQ# 8616001
AIM screen name: KDean75206
David McReynolds for President!
http://www.votesocialist.org
Socialist Party of Western New York
http://sp-usa.org/ny/buffalo
EMail: wnysp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has,
therefore, robbed the whole world -- both the world of men and nature -- of
its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man's work and man's
existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it.--Dr.
Karl Marx