Big brother is watching

With every year that passes, our working lives seem to creep closer and closer to the pages of 1984.

From the monitoring of email and internet usage to the recording of phone calls "for training purposes" an increasing number of bosses seem more focused on the surveillance of their staff than watching what their customers are doing.

But now a piece of legislation is about to come in that is so Orwellian it would make even the thought police proud - welcome to the regime of the National Staff Dismissal Register.

The register, which is expected to go live in a matter of weeks, is basically an online database of workers accused of theft and dishonesty in the work place.

The list has been spawned by a relationship between the Home Office and the British Retail Consortium although the Home Office has now stopped funding the scheme and it has been taken over by Surrey-based Hicom Business Solutions.

But this is not a list of those convicted of a criminal offence, it merely black-lists those who have ever faced ALLEGATIONS of stealing, forgery, fraud, damaging company property or causing a loss to their employers and suppliers.

Having worked as a temp in various office environments, I have witnessed at close hand how personal disputes between staff can manifest themselves into false accusations at work - surely the system can be abused and the wrongly accused could find themselves out of work and unable to land future employment because of the dreaded list.

The impending list has received little press coverage but unions have already voiced their concerns over it. Click here to voice your opinions over the list in our forum.

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