Privacy Legal Issues in the Public Sector

Abstract:     
This article appears as a Chapter in a book on Workplace Privacy and was part of New York University 58th Annual Conference on Labor in 2005. This article was updated in December 2009. The article focuses on privacy issues in the public sector. It explains that the right of privacy involves boundary lines, how notions of privacy have changed over time-particularly after September 11th, focuses on the constitutional right of privacy, workplace searches and surveillance, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, surveillance and labor relations issues, Sunshine laws and public employee statutory rights, the right to union representation at investigatory interviews, gay marriages and concludes that many of the boundary lines concerning the right of privacy in the public as well as the private sector can be negotiated by employers and unions.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 43

Keywords: Employment, Employee, Unions, Privacy, Constitutional Law, Workplace Searches, Labor Relations, Public Sector Labor Relations, Collective Bargaining

JEL Classification: J12, J13, J18, J50, J58, J59, K31, K10

Accepted Paper Series