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Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
A sample E-mail and Voice-mail policy
Contributed by the CPSR Portland Chapter.
These policies were created and used by a large, prominent Oregon CAD Company.
See the paper: Email, Voicemail, and Privacy: What Policy is Ethical? by Marsha Woodbury.
See our brief comments on the policy
See Labor Union comments on the policy
See another comment: Email messages ARE organizational records!
The following is a standard policy on Electronic-Mail (E-mail), and Voice-Mail (V-mail) communications. It is intended to serve as a reference for companies to establish policies of their own. This is an authentic operational document that, even with its flaws, has served its company well:
E-mail and V-mail are corporate assets and critical components of Personal use of E-mail or V-mail by employees is allowable but should
not interfere with or conflict with business use. Employees should exercise
good judgment regarding the reasonableness of personal use. A junkmail
group and other ad-hoc mail groups are available for employees to exchange
information or post personal notices (i.e. "for sale", "for rent", "looking
to buy", etc.). Employees may sell items or post messages on junkmail or
other ad-hoc mail groups as long as they do not violate the law or company
policies.
Use of Efficient Usage
Efficient use of the E-mail and V-mail systems suggests that messages
should be concise and directed to individuals with an interest or need
to know. General notice bulletins may be sent to public groups, news groups
local to V-mail messages which have been read will expire after 7 days. This
is a limitation of the disk storage capacity of the voicemail system.
Misuses of Electronic-mail and Voice-mail Misuse of E-mail/V-mail
can result in disciplinary action up to and including termination. Examples
of misuse includes the following:
The Information Systems department is responsible to ensure the efficient
use of systems according to this policy. Where issues arise, I.S. will
deal directly with the employee (and notify their manager where appropriate).
The interpretation of appropriate use and future revisions of this policy
are the responsibility of the Communications Steering Committee (VP. HR,
General Counsel, I.S. Director).
(2) The language of "efficiency" is distasteful--CPSR would like to
see companies orienting their policy to more human values and individual
rights. Communications via e-mail or v-mail should not burden the receiver
inappropriately or unnecessarily, but this brevity is as much courtesy
as it is efficient.
(3) Proper disclaimers on external postings are important.
As long as corporations recognize the rights of workers to organize,
there will be a justification for those union members to collectively discuss
and review those items that are of concern to them.
Because unions legally provide a single point of contact between corporations
and their workers, for the purpose of determining wages, working conditions
and so forth, any attempt to stifle communication between unionized workers
would have the same effect as interfering in the internal affairs of a
client or a supplier. In this case, there is a often a group that uses
corporate computing equipment and networks with the same or more amount
of freedom than that corporation's clients. These people, the unionized
employees of the corpotation, must be permitted to communicate freely.
Anything less would be seen, by union people, as an unnatural attempt
at coersion at best, censorship at worst. In my place of employ, the unionized
workers have an internal newsgroup with 350 participants that regularly
discusses politics, corporate policy as it affects us and other items of
interest to our union members. We also, as employees of one of the largest
computing services in the world, adhere to a well-established corporate
policy, where that policy is not in violation of the Collective Bargaining
Agreement we have with our corporation.
As our corporation grows - we are at 3000 employees nationwide, with
only about 500 of them unionized - and taking into account that our owner
has many tens of thousands of nonunionized employees worldwide, our democratic
rights to unfettered association are being threatened on all sides by policies
such as have been proposed here.
It is necessary to guard a corporation's assets and secrets and to ensure
that people are working when they are supposed to be, but it must be remembered
that corporations do not own us, and to attempt to control our ideas is
a folly that no amount of persuasion logical or otherwize, will be accepted
by employees who feel they ought to be able to freely express their opinions
about their employer with their fellows.
Some may say that this type of communication must be conducted after
hours using other equipment. This type of thinking would also ban certain
items from bulletin boards (the kind that hang on walls). I feel that I
have taken up enough of your time that it would be rude of me to debate
the pros and cons of workplace democracy.
The fact remains, though, that human nature tends to make us suspicious
and resentful towards those who rule with legislation aimed at stifling
dissent. (ie. the late, not lamented, Soviet Union) Corporations with any
sense will realize this and learn to live with and encourage dissent. The
alternative is a dissaffected workforce that will carry on discussions
outside of work that may not be as agreeable to the corporation or as mindful
of what harm could befall the corporation's reputation.
This type of situation is developing in many workplaces, as a natural
response to corporate attempts to control what their "Resources" (people)
are thinking. New alternative media, such as may be found on the internet,
as well as many small magazines and newsletters, are appearing as fast
as these types of policies are initiated. Feb. 21, 1997
See another comment: Email messages ARE organizational
records!
Responsibility for this policy:
CPSR Comments:
Labor Union Comments
Updated by Marsha Woodbury on
Nov. 11,1998.
Please send your comments and suggestions.