An employee where I have been employed for the last year got into my wallet and my cell phone and took screenshots of text messages and my employer swept it under the rug is there anything I can do
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An employee where I have been employed for the last year got into my wallet and my cell phone and took screenshots of text messages and my employer swept it under the rug is there anything I can do
I terminated my employment yesterday
because I have been harassed and bullied
for the last 7 months at my job so many
things have happened but recently one
week ago the person doing this to me
when I was in the restroom got ahold of
my phone that has a wallet attached to
it where my credit cards driver’s
license social security card and
everything is in and move those around
so I don’t know what she did with them
she got into my text messages found a
text message that she thought was
interesting took pictures of it and
showed it around to people and my
employer would not do anything about it
I feel extremely harassed I have tried
to file a police report nothing was done
about it I tried to file a PPO nothing
was done about it I went up to my
supervisor’s supervisor and it was
brushed under the rug and in fact I was
written up for causing drama because I
brought this to her attention I am upset
and I want to know if there’s anything
that the labor board can do for me
Asked on September 15, 2017 under Employment Labor Law, Michigan
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 7 years ago | Contributor
Your employer is not the police; they are not legally required to protect you from harassment (unless it was sexual harassment, harassment due to your race, religion, color, national origin or age over 40, or harassment against you because you are disabled) by another employee, and also are not required to take action when a criminal act (like taken, even if only temporarily, your property and essentially "wiretapping" your phone number by going into your text messages without permission) is done against you. Employers simply do not need to get involved in employee-employee disputes or issues, or protect one employee from another. Furthermore, if they deem that one employee, even the victim, is causing disruption or "drama" at work, they can terminate that employee if they choose but not the other, even if doing so is unfair: all employment is employment at will in this country (unless there is a written employment contract to the contrary), so an employer may decide to terminate any employee it chooses, for any reason; and also, there are no laws or other legal obligations on employers to be fair or reasonable.
So you do not appear to be able to take any action against the employer: they were not legally required to help you, and could legally terminate you.
You should, however, go the police and file a police report about what the other employee did; as alluded to above, some of their actions appear to have been at least arguably criminal.
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