5 ms·

What if the company said that they were going to assault him if he was to use private messaging? Does that make it alright because they warned him?

• blowski 11y ago
  No, because assault is obviously wrong, whereas his employer having access to his private messaging on his work machine in work time was more of a grey area.
  • AlexandrB 11y ago
    If it's a grey area why should he have expected to lose the lawsuit?
    • blowski 11y ago
      If it wasn't a grey area, why would the European Court of Human Rights be hearing it instead of a local employment tribunal? Lots of law is a grey area, with both sides putting their argument and a judge adjudicating. On the other hand, an employer physically assaulting an employee (with or without warning) wouldn't need to be heard by the ECHR because there is so much law and precedent to say that employers can't do that. This is a straw man argument, and it's really not worth debating.
• gepoch 11y ago
  Right. What the company did was bad, regardless of the warning. But I think his argument would have been stronger if he had raised the issue after his initial warning. Why did they have to invade his privacy twice for it to become an issue for him? The answer: because he was sacked. This seems to change it from a privacy issue to a retaliation. Not that I'm okay at all with employers being able to violate his privacy, regardless of his motives for claiming his civil rights.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• ddalex 11y ago
  This isn't a contract dispute - this is a human rights dispute. Assault is probably against Romania's laws. As such, any policy or contract specifying assault is illegal. Invasion of privacy in the workplace is allowed under law; this law was challenged in the ECHR - and the challenged failed, so the law stays. So it is legal to put this in any contracts in EU, since the judgement sets precedence across EU.
  • Coding_Cat 11y ago
    >So it is legal to put this in any contracts in EU, since the judgement sets precedence across EU. Nitpicky, but I believe it says that any European country can have laws which allow this but they are not required to allow it. E.g. the Belgium Gov't might still pass a law which says companies are not allowed to do this.
  • venomsnake 11y ago
    Just a nitpick - the contract is not illegal. It is not legally enforceable or valid.