The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judged that a firm that read a worker's Yahoo Messenger chats sent while he was at work was within the company’s rights. The worker, an engineer in Romania, claimed that his employer had breached his right to confidential correspondence when the firm accessed his messages and subsequently dismissed him in 2007. The Court dismissed the man's request, saying that it was not ‘unreasonable that an employer would want to verify that employees were completing their professional tasks during working hours’. Judges stated he had breached the company's rules and that his employer had a right to check on his activities during working hours. It was reasoned that such policies must also protect workers against unfettered snooping. Countries that have ratified the European Convention on Human Rights have agreed to abide by the ECHR rulings that involve them.
English: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology …
The judgment : http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng …
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.