Is being searched by your employer EVERY day legal? (page 4)

Warlock

Maybe someone called the store and told them an employee was stealing.

Warlock

SnakesInTheTower

mkr:

We used to get searched at UPS every day when we left...

I think we were wanded with those beeping wands that you see at TSA...and of course any packages we had were searched...

I did temp work for a contractor that processed IRS (Internal Revenue Service) tax returns...VERY secure, nondescript building. Before we were hired, we were a) fingerprinted manually b) fingerprinted digitally (scanned) c) even our left and right side of our hands were included... (visualize this: you are sitting processing checks, put your hands down, often your hand will sit on the side not palm down..so an imprint could be on a check or paperwork) d) handwriting analysis...we had to sign our name with our right hand AND our left hand ten times each e) serious background and credit checks.... everything but an anal probe and strip search...

after we were hired, we were not allowed to take in jackets, purses, lunch buckets, etc into the main processing area. We could bring in a CD player (tells you how long ago this was with the iPod and other mp3 players now) and we could bring in CDs...but we were not allowed to carry in the jewel cases... I started bringing my CDs in a clear ziploc bag....but they still opened the zip loc bag and thumbed through the individual CDs to make sure there was no money or checks in between..... we could bring in a water bottle, as long as it was see through and had a cap on it... cell phones had to be left in the lockers (no cameras allowed)... and there were more cameras per square foot than anywhere else you could possibly be.

I used to work in retail...no way in hell I would ever allow anyone to do those kind of searches on me.... I understand the IRS thing..because we were handling checks and sometimes cash (though people are told not to send cash, they do anyway...and there was a serious procedure for handling that)

Snakes ()

Scully

Gill,

From what I know of you (your posts here on JWD), I don't think you would tolerate the indignity of daily searches of your person. Compared to what they are planning to pay you on a daily basis, do you consider it worth the price? I have never, ever, been subjected to a search of this kind by my employer, even when I worked in a retail shop for minimum wage. The union would have a coniption fit if my current employer attempted it without cause (and likely with cause too).

hillbilly

Snakes.... I have cleared nuke plants and a Pratt Whitney jet engine test plant with less hassles than that IRS office.

Hill

Layla33

I was just thinking - you wouldn't want to work in the government because you will be searched, and scanned, etc...

S3RAPH1M

If it was said in the job description or at the interview that you would be searched, and you still went forward with the employment, by your consent, yes.

diamondblue1974

Sorry I have only come across this thread quite late on but I can provide you with a brief synopsis of the law relating to UK Employment and an employers ability to search employees.

There is no absolute right to privacy under UK law although the issue of searching employees is not without its pitfalls for the employer. Firstly a fundamental part of a contract of employment is the relationship of trust and confidence (Safeway Stores v Morrow). To search in this way continuously demonstrates that they do not trust you on a continual basis and so therefore would be better off searching members of staff randomly to avoid claims of breach of contract/wrongful dismissal.

Another contractual issue is that of confidentiality, are the contents of the search disclosed elsewhere? Are the results of the search kept confidential and who has access to this information? If the results of the search are unreasonably disclosed then the employee could claim breach of contract/wrongful dismissal.

Beyond this, the way in which a member of staff is searched is also of concern - if a female member of staff is searched by a man then theres the potential for their to a considerable loss of dignity and potential for a discrimination claim. Why should a woman subject herself to an intimate search (baring flesh) by a man?

How the search is carried out is relevant primarily because if it isnt done sensitively it could be classed as assault and the employer could be liable both criminally and within the civil context.

There are human rights issues but against a private employer there is no free standing claim available for breaches of the Human Rights Act 1998 (the Act governs the relationship between the state and public).

Hope that helps.

Gary

beksbks

My son worked at Fry's Electronics here in California, and they had the same type of policy. I would pick him up in the evening, and they had the same routine every night. They would shoo me away if I parked to close to the front of the store to wait for him, wouldn't open the door for anyone until I had moved.

Gill

Thank you all for your replys. Sorry that I have not been able to get to the computer for the last couple of days and reply. It does help to see that so many others have the gut feeling that something is not right about this kind of behaviour. Sometimes you can wonder if you are just being 'overly sensitive' to something and I suppose that's why these firms get away with this kind of behaviour.

Scully - Thanks! You're right in that for someone like me with my past history, something like this may well be an unfortunate tipping point.....again. However, I was rather impressed with myself that I was, firstly able to get on the bus and go for the interview, sit in the job centre waiting to be interviewed and got through the interview well. Then, I sat through two days of induction with another 20 + people in a small room and didn't panic and 'run out screaming in terror!' It's nice to know that my brain is 'coming along' but I don't know if I could take any kind of 'indignity' to be honest. However, my husband has said that at any point I want to 'walk' and just leave the job, that's fine with him and though I don't feel I need his permission to do that, I feel I would like to push my 'emotional stability' a bit furthur. I am discovering that I am a different person to the broken one that left the WT nearly 6 years ago now. I fear no one, but still feel uncomfortable that anyone would have such power of another person to humiliate them every day. I shall see what happens.

DiamondBlue1974 - Thanks so much for that information. Certainly strikes me that they do not trust their employees at all. Even the delivery drivers are searched on arrival and leaving the premises! Stinks of acute paranoid delusions to me and I wondered if the fact that the shop chain is 'family owned' gave them an overwhelming verging on psychotic 'feeling' that their stock was ( and I accept that it is) but that their stock is 'theirs and theirs alone' but to a greater extent than say Tescos' or Asda stores who are not family run, and so they behave in such a bizarre and extreme manner.

If their loses due to theft are as high as they claim and shop lifters and staff appear not to be at fault since they are so maniacally searched, it may well be that the people at the top of the organization who escape searching might well be to blame for the thefts rather than the underclass minions that they chose to blame.

sass_my_frass

That's intolerable. I like to think that you should tell them to shove their lousy job, but I don't know what the employment story is like over there. Here it's 3% unemployment. If they tell you off for taking too long for lunch you can tell them to shove their lousy job, because there's a better one in the shop next door.

Is being searched by your employer EVERY day legal?

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