Grievance Filed-Locker Searches

On Friday May 16th a search was conducted on all of our lockers. No employees were present during the search of their lockers.

A class action grievance was filed May 21st.

The reason for the search may have been legitimate but, the execution violated their own policy P & P 8-2100 and probably the 4th Amendment.

Considering how quick staff is written up for violating policy, one would think they would consult their own policies before doing that.

Anyone who receiving discipline as a result of that search, find a steward and file a grievance.

Here's a related article I found in Police Chief Magazine entitled,

When Does an Employer’s Search of Employee Work Areas Violate Privacy Rights?

By Lieutenant Kim Wilson, J.D., Portsmouth, Virginia, Police Department    (Click on title for full story) overnment employers are sometimes faced with conducting searches of their employee’s work areas. When doing so, they must understand the level of privacy public employees legitimately expect in those areas. Can employers search an employee’s office, desk, locker, or assigned vehicle? When is it reasonable, if ever, to search an employee’s purse or briefcase? In answering these questions, courts have established that an employer must first determine if the employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the property searched and then determine if the search’s purpose outweighs any of the employee’s Fourth Amendment privacy interests. and Practical Considerations It is recommended that employers establish and post policies informing their employees that their work areas are subject to search. They should state clearly that employers have the right to search, for legitimate business purposes, county-, city-, or state-owned vehicles, equipment, desks, file cabinets, and so on; they should also encourage employees not to store personal items in these areas. Such policies will lessen employees’ expectations of privacy. Chiefs should remember that even if an employee can assert a reasonable expectation of privacy, a public employer can meet the burden of showing the search’s reasonableness through a combination of factors. These include reasonable suspicion of misconduct, a lowered expectation of privacy because of accessibility, or a reliable coworker tip of misconduct. The final lesson of these cases is that before conducting a workplace search of employee lockers, offices, files, or other areas where employees might have a legitimate expectation of privacy, employers should ask whether the need for such a search outweighs employees’ privacy interests and if the search is related to an investigation into suspected employee misconduct and limited to those areas where they may find evidence. ■