October 25, 2010

Here is today's E-mail Alert from Lancaster House.
http://www.lancasterhouse.com/conferences/Vancouver/lac-psb/reg-lac-psb09v.asp

CPR allowed access to employees' personal cell phone records

A prominent arbitrator has found that Canadian Pacific Railway's policy of asking employees to provide records of their cell phone use following a serious workplace accident is not a violation of privacy rights. In spite of objections from the union that the policy was contrary to the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the arbitrator determined that the balancing of interests between an employee's privacy rights and the employer's legitimate concern to ensure safe operations must tip in favour of the employer when there is a question of cell phone use prior to a serious workplace accident or incident. The policy was "a reasonable and necessary exercise of [the employer's] management prerogatives, in the pursuit of safe operations."

The rest of this report is available at: http://www.lancasterhouse.com/