Any lawyers here?

[Dingbat]

They have said it, and a contract was signed.

HORN:

KO?  This the same as the COTR

[Horn]

Originally posted by Dingbat
HORN:

KO?  This the same as the COTR

Sorry. As most of my business was with the DoD, to differentiate between a commanding officer and contracting officer, the requisitioning branch official was referred to as "KO" --this is not the same as the contracting officer's technical representative (altho it is from the same office)--the cotrs are generally low end minions responsible for only one or a few contracts within their expertise.

The KO is the person who actually signed the dd1155 (if that was your vehicle) and is the responsible gov't party for contractual performance.

h

[aknimitz]

I dont know if I am completely missing something or not, but ... what is illegal (or wrong in your opinino) about an employer making you sign a contract that says you will only use your company-provided cell phone for business use? That sounds not only reasonable to be, but, call me crazy, good business policy? Get your own cell phone if you want to have one for personal use? Or offer to split the bill with the company ... *shrug

Nim

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Dingbat
They have said it, and a contract was signed.

HORN:

KO?  This the same as the COTR

KO is contracting officer in Army speak. In the Navy, the COTR works for/with the contracting officer.

[Dingbat]

Originally posted by aknimitz
I dont know if I am completely missing something or not, but ... what is illegal (or wrong in your opinino) about an employer making you sign a contract that says you will only use your company-provided cell phone for business use? That sounds not only reasonable to be, but, call me crazy, good business policy? Get your own cell phone if you want to have one for personal use? Or offer to split the bill with the company ... *shrug

Nim

Get your own cell phone if you want to have one for personal use? No arguement here

Or offer to split the bill with the company...  They have refused to even discuss this.

[aknimitz]

But you still havent told me what about the policy you feel is illegal/wrong?

Nim

[Dingbat]

it's in the first post

"Is it legal to take a business tool from someone and then fire them because they can't perform their duties? "

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Dingbat
it's in the first post

"Is it legal to take a business tool from someone and then fire them because they can't perform their duties? "

The government does the same thing with "security clearances".

[crowMAW]

Sounds like their cell phone policy is pretty lenient.  The last organization that I worked for (state gov't) was much more strict...first offence of personal calls noted on a work cell phone was grounds for immediate termination.  I solved the problem by refusing a work cell and used my own, however filed for re-imbursement for calls that were business related.  

However, if your company will not re-imburse you for the calls on your own phone, then I would write that off my taxes.

[Hornet]

Attempted to require us to sign a privacy policy that allowed them to view any personal information (including health records) they so desired under the guise of research.

If you're just fishing for some sort of illegality, from what you have listed as grievances your protected health information is your best bet.

new HIPPA regulations went into effect 3/1/03, I'd be surprised if a gov contractor's HR would be so late in compliance but there may holes in their current policy regarding the handling of protected health information.

[Dinger]

My initial reaction was "dang, that's a pretty poor way to relate to labor".  Then again, there could be an explanation beneath this.

You certainly can fire someone for theft.
But let's look at cellphone usage; say management has tolerated a discrete amount of personal traffic as a part of the "celphone benefit".  Now somebody abuses that, and rings up something like $1000 in overages (which can be really bad if you're a public outfit, and someone catches wind of "government property for private use"). Manager goes to HR and asks, "how do we fire this person?"
Well, it's gonna be tough to fire if that person can show that, official policy notwithstanding, it was common practice to make personal calls.  Show the celphone records of everyone in the work group, and demonstrate that s/he's not the only one using the phone for other purposes. So you could run into trouble trying to terminate someone like that.
So what do you do? Start enforcing the rules. They're not "taking someone's cellphone away and then firing them for being unable to fulfill their duties".  They're "either taking away someone's cellphone or firing their bellybutton for theft".



Of course, if this part of a trend on the behalf of management to regularize your activity (and always at the detriment of the employees),  maybe you should look into unionization. Politics don't create unions; bad management does.

[weaselsan]

Originally posted by _Schadenfreude_
Not sure about the employment laws in USA but in Europe and Uk specifically you have to have better reason than you outlined to fire someone.

.

The U.S. has employment at will...I don't need a reason to fire you.

[Dingbat]

Originally posted by weaselsan
The U.S. has employment at will...I don't need a reason to fire you.

Actually you are quite wrong.  Ever hear of wrongful termination...

[Mike_2851]

Dingbat,

(DISCLIAMER) I am not a lawyer, but I am a Union official in my local (yeah one of those guys) and I deal with this sort of thing all the time.

Although I am in the private sector some of the rules and laws translate between public and private sector jobs.

Any employer has the right to develop and enforce policies and proceedures in the workplace that they own or control. However if any of these policies are illegal, immoral, or unsafe they cannot reasonably enforce such a "work rule" and the employee would and should be protected through any grievance or litigation.

With that being said, I do not see anything "illegal" with the cell phone policy as you state it here. There are problems for sure, but illegal-no. The policy as you state it is vauge and painted in very broad strokes. I would try to find out what criteria they use to determine between business and personal. For instance if you call home to talk with your wife and see how her day is going-personal, If you call home and ask your wife to retrive a computer file and give you some details from it that you forgot to bring with you to work that day-business-You get my drift? The actual vaugeness of the policy might leave you some room for a defense if things would turn bad for you (at least that is what I would base my defensive arguments on)-but illegal-no-not in my opinion.

The issue with your personal health information, that is a horse of a different color. As was stated, the HIPPA (Health Insurance Privacy & Portability Act) laws that went into effect last year caused a lot of employers to cringe-now they can know even less about you. To have you sign a release is their way to circumvent that law and as long as you sign off it is not illegal, but is not and should not be a requirement of continued employment. Refusal to sign such a document would not be a legal basis for termination. To be hired for a new job-well you are not given much of a choice (unfortunately).

crowMAW, Hornet, and Dinger bring up some good points that you might consider.

Hope this all helps, good luck to you

[Bodhi]

Originally posted by Dingbat
for the record, I am a government contractor.
 My government boss will Publicly (through email) Humiliates people when mistakes are made.

That is illegal, the offended parties should talk to a lawyer.