Employement Law

1. What do you think are some of the factors in the modern workplace that contribute to a theft of time? How can those factors be managed?

The three huge factors contribution of theft of time in the work place is the internet, mobile phones and smoking.

Most employees have a computer on their desk to do their job and the internet allows employees to access social sites such as facebook. Employees also can surf the internet hours at a time instead of performing their job. The employer can control sites the empolyees can access by placing blocks to sites such as facebook, personal e-mails, pornigraphic, and other sites. Another way to manage internet usage that is non-work related is to monitor the usage by suspected employees that continues to ask for overtime or complains about not having enough time during the day to finish an assignment.

Mobile phone is another device that allow empolyees the opportunity of theft of time. Most if not all mobile phones allows the user to access facebook, twitter and the internet. Ten or twenty years ago, there were employees that would talk on company phone that was non-work related. Now the phone has gone high-tech and mobile. Instead of talking, employees can continue to communicate discretely by texting and going on the internet. I see no way of managing mobile phones, as employee rights may be violated. One way to manage it is a policy not to use your personal mobile phone at work. For family emergencies, the employee's family can call the work place.

The third huge factor is smoking. Smokers take up to 5-10 minutes to smoke a cigarette and taking smoke breaks two to three time an hour and that adds up to 20-30 minutes of theft of time per hour. Some employers have smoke areas while others have no smoking on company property. One way to manage smokers is to have a no smoking policy. If employees that smoke want to smoke than they would have to walk off the property to smoke. This would also assist smokers from quiting.

2. What does the word Whistleblower mean (legally speaking)? Give an example of whistleblowing.

Legally speaking, Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 protects a federal employee who reports agency misconduct. Whistleblowers files a complaint they believe a federal agency is in violation of the law such as gross waste of funds or danger to the public.

An example of whistleblowing is the case of Julia Davis, a former Custom and Boarder Patrol Officer reported a national security violation of Homeland Security at the San Ysdiro Port of Entry by allowing entry of twenty-three aliens from alleged terrorist countries during Fourth of July when the terrorist threat was high. Officer Davis was harrassed with two malicous prosecutions, false imprisonment, harrasement of her family and a raid by the Department of Homeland Security of her home.

In 2010, Homeland security settled on a lawsuit by Ms. Davis and several high-ranking officials in Homeland Security was force to resign because of the heavy handedness they used on Ms. Davis. The federal Government makes the law and the federal Government breaks them.

Reference

Julia Davis V. Department of Homeland Security (2010) United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Court.

3. "Retaliation" has become one of the most often cited reasons for employees filing charges with the EEOC against their employers.