CWA 1180 - News

City cracks down on email and Internet use

May 2007

The City has launched a wave of crackdowns on the inappropriate use of email and the Internet on the job. Local 1180 staff reps report dozens of disciplinary charges in the past few months at City agencies, in particular the Human Resources Administration (HRA) and the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). “Generally, right now, we’re able to reduce the penalties,” says staff rep Bernadette Sullivan. “But with the City using progressive discipline, it could lead to termination, because every time you repeat the same infraction, the penalties escalate.”

Staff rep Lachaune Hackett has represented a number of Local 1180 members at ACS who forwarded humorous emails with explicit sexual content. “One member forwarded along a pair of emails with the titles
‘Bra sizes’ and ‘Guess what cup size,’” she says. “Inside the first are photos of women with their breasts exposed. In the second is an image you think is a woman’s cleavage, but then in the next photo you see it’s a baby’s bottom with a bra wrapped around it. At ACS, of all places, you really can’t do anything to imply you support the harming of a child.” The member faced four charges including creating a hostile work environment, engaging in conduct detrimental to the agency, and improper use of agency equipment.

But members can be penalized even if the emails aren’t sexually explicit. “A lot of our members assume it’s okay if it’s just a prayer or ‘Have a nice day,’ but it’s not,” Hackett says. “They know they shouldn’t do it, but it was never enforced before. But now they’re seeing their co-workers picked off one by one. I hope our members are starting to realize how severe these charges can be.”

Sullivan has a case at HRA where a member was using the Internet to book vacations, listen to the radio, and search job postings. “A lot of it was clocked on on-duty times,” she says. “So that constitutes theft of services.” Agencies can even track deleted emails, Sullivan points out, and they keep logs that track each staffer’sInternet use. At one hearing, involving a member at the Health and Hospitals Corporation, a supervisor pulled out a two-inch thick stack of personal emails the employee had sent on company time. “Even if you do this on your lunch hour,” she points out, “you’re still using their equipment.”

The bottom line, says Sullivan, is that City employees are barred from
using City computers for anything beyond what’s authorized for work purposes. So far, penalties have included 15-day suspensions, loss of vacation days, reprimands, and fines. “Many of these folks had 20
years of service with no infraction,” says Sullivan. “They had clean records and they meant no harm. But then this came up.”

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