Navigating Privacy Issues in the Workplace
Speaker: Bob Oberstein
Speaker Designation: Arbitrator, Mediator/facilitator, Fact-finder/Investigator, Trainer and Educator
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Speaker: Bob Oberstein
Speaker Designation: Arbitrator, Mediator/facilitator, Fact-finder/Investigator, Trainer and Educator
Although privacy is a dynamic issue of growing concern in essentially every modern workplace, there is still no single comprehensive law governing workplace privacy. Instead, privacy in the workplace is more of a patchwork quilt coming under a variety of laws covering recruitment; medical inquiries; background and misconduct investigations; monitoring and surveillance; honesty; psychological, drug, and alcohol testing; medical and personnel records; off-duty conduct; employer information; etc. So, it’s all the more reason to attend this webinar to learn about where the boundary lines are in this rapidly growing area of concern and what is and is not permissible.
Most employees insist they have privacy rights, especially at the workplace. But few know what those rights are. Likewise, not every employer or manager know what the employer's privacy rights are or what their obligations are when it comes to respecting an employee’s privacy rights and what the penalties are for not doing so and that was in a pre-Covid-19 world!
If you, do not know what an employee and employer’s rights privacy are and do it wrong, are you prepared to face the consequences of actual, compensatory, or punitive damages and damage to your own professional reputation and standing within your work community? And what about COVID-19 or the next pandemic? For the foreseeable future the workplace will be raising issues about an employee’s privacy rights to refuse to wear PPE, be tested, vaccinated or contact traced both at work or in their personal life. Such privacy issues are inevitable since COVID-19 and the very nature of any pandemic is its highly communicable nature and effects not just the employee but others as well.
So, if fortune favors the prepared than this webinar will help you be ready to help guide you through this maze of privacy rights by exploring the foundations, current state, and possible future changes of privacy in the workplace.
Bob Oberstein has over 52 years of Labor/Employee Relations experience on all sides of the labor-management table including as a neutral (arbitrator, mediator) in both the public and private sectors. He has served as a Commissioner, Maricopa County's Judicial Merit System Review Commission; Member, City of Phoenix Fire and Police Pension Boards; and Member/Chairman, City of Phoenix Civil Service Board. He is also the recipient of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) Director's Certificate of Recognition for Achievement in Promoting Positive Labor-Management Relations. Bob has served as Director, of the Labor Management Relations Program at Ottawa University, Phoenix (OU), Arizona where he taught conflict resolution, grievance processing, arbitration, and negotiation among other courses. He also served OU as Ombudsman for all student, faculty, and support disputes as well as the Disabled Student Liaison and received recognition in "Who's Who Among America's Teachers.
Bob currently mediates in the Family, Civil and Small Claims courts in the State of Washington and serves on the permanent panels/rosters for the FMCS Arbitration Roster (Regions 1, 2, 4, and 7); Oregon Employment Relations Board (OERB); Washington Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC); State of California Mediation and Conciliation Service (SCMCS) Public Employment Relations Panel; American Arbitration Association (AAA) Workplace Investigation Panel; Arizona Department of Education (ADE) Hearing Officer Panel; Eglin Air Force Base & American Federation of Government Employees Local No. 214 Arbitration Panel. In the past, Bob served as mediator and arbitrator on the employment, labor, commercial, and construction panels for the American Arbitration Association and for Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). He was also the initial trainer and advisor for the U.S. EEOC’s Phoenix Regional Office’s mediation program where additionally, he served as a mediator. Bob has also served as facilitator/mediator for the Interest-based bargaining process for several labor negotiations as well as being a Special Master (Arb-Med) in labor-management grievance resolution.
Bob holds a BA in English/Education from St. John's University, a Master of Science in Social Science and Graduate Certificate of Labor Studies from Long Island University, and a Master of Jurisprudence in Labor and Employment Law from Tulane University Law School.