What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California [SUB][/SUB]
This is a long and pretty complicated story, so I will try to be concise.
I worked for an oil company as an office assistant for about 2 years. During this period of time I noticed some questionable time keeping methods and employment practices. One day with my free time I decided to reconcile the hours I'd worked from my start date up until my most recent paycheck to make sure there were no discrepancies. As I did so I found out roughly 40 hours of work had gone uncompensated. I voiced to my supervisor this discrepancy, and waited several weeks for his action. During this period, I begun to also look into my employers healthcare and paid sick leave responsibilities (I was given neither). According to the Healthy Care Ordinance of San Francisco I am to be allotted an hourly stipend to put towards my own insurance in the instance my employer does not cover me. I also found that I should have been accruing sick time due to the Paid Sick Leave Ordinance of San Francisco. I brought both of these up to my supervisor and was greeted with, "well there's nothing I can do about it". I decided to take matters into my own hands and filed complaints (in July-2014) concerning their violation of both ordinances. I also took this opportunity to file a wage claim as no action was taken about the hourly discrepancy.
In the following months all 3 complaints were addressed by City and State officials. I was paid my unpaid wages as well as 2 separate penalty fees. I was paid a penalty for the Paid Sick Leave Ordinance violation and began accruing sick time. I was given a Medical Reimbursement Account and an hourly stipend for coverage, as well as a settlement for the companies violation in not giving me this stipend previously. I should also note that I am not the only employee that received these benefits and penalty payments, the company underwent an audit of its healthcare coverage system after my complaint was filed, resulting in a number of employees receiving settlements.
In mid December of 2014 I was called into my supervisors office and told that as of December 31st, 2014, I would be terminated from the company. When asked for the reason for my termination, I was told that information could not be disclosed. It seemed apparent that this was an act of retaliation, my health care complaint had not even reached resolve yet (I didn't receive my settlement until late January 2015).
I decided to file a retaliation claim. Since then I have sent in my detailed timeline of events, however my case has not yet been assigned (I'm told it can take quite a while).
Which brings me up to today: I was browsing through my history in Chrome looking for a particular link when I stumbled upon some activity that brought up red flags to me. It was activity on the website of an offsite storage company I used to manage an account with at the company. When I clicked on the link itself I was able to see that this was accessed by someone using my old work computer. I used Google Chrome at work and it is what I also use at home. Because the accounts are linked, the history is all aggregated to my Gmail account, allowing me to see their activity. Apparently someone had bypassed my Windows login and was using my personal company account to access the offsite storage website through my Chrome browser. What shocked me was within this same session, my PERSONAL Gmail account was not only accessed, but snooped around in, in apparently an effort to uncover information. Emails concerning my termination in correspondence with others were opened.
Here is a [now removed] photo of the web activity, all coming from my old work computer. Keep in mind this is nearly 6 months since I've been employed here, this is just the only instance I have caught this activity, it is absolutely likely there were previous instances.
Clearly they are going through my PRIVATE email looking for specific information regarding my termination. This is a huge breach of privacy. Obviously I immediately changed my Gmail password, as well as any other important passwords (everything is linked to my Gmail).
My question now is, what do I do with this information? I'm still waiting to hear from the State about the retaliation claim, do I go to a lawyer? Do I contact the company telling them I have photographic evidence someone was snooping around my Gmail?
Thanks for reading, any help or insight would be greatly greatly appreciated, thank you!
This is a long and pretty complicated story, so I will try to be concise.
I worked for an oil company as an office assistant for about 2 years. During this period of time I noticed some questionable time keeping methods and employment practices. One day with my free time I decided to reconcile the hours I'd worked from my start date up until my most recent paycheck to make sure there were no discrepancies. As I did so I found out roughly 40 hours of work had gone uncompensated. I voiced to my supervisor this discrepancy, and waited several weeks for his action. During this period, I begun to also look into my employers healthcare and paid sick leave responsibilities (I was given neither). According to the Healthy Care Ordinance of San Francisco I am to be allotted an hourly stipend to put towards my own insurance in the instance my employer does not cover me. I also found that I should have been accruing sick time due to the Paid Sick Leave Ordinance of San Francisco. I brought both of these up to my supervisor and was greeted with, "well there's nothing I can do about it". I decided to take matters into my own hands and filed complaints (in July-2014) concerning their violation of both ordinances. I also took this opportunity to file a wage claim as no action was taken about the hourly discrepancy.
In the following months all 3 complaints were addressed by City and State officials. I was paid my unpaid wages as well as 2 separate penalty fees. I was paid a penalty for the Paid Sick Leave Ordinance violation and began accruing sick time. I was given a Medical Reimbursement Account and an hourly stipend for coverage, as well as a settlement for the companies violation in not giving me this stipend previously. I should also note that I am not the only employee that received these benefits and penalty payments, the company underwent an audit of its healthcare coverage system after my complaint was filed, resulting in a number of employees receiving settlements.
In mid December of 2014 I was called into my supervisors office and told that as of December 31st, 2014, I would be terminated from the company. When asked for the reason for my termination, I was told that information could not be disclosed. It seemed apparent that this was an act of retaliation, my health care complaint had not even reached resolve yet (I didn't receive my settlement until late January 2015).
I decided to file a retaliation claim. Since then I have sent in my detailed timeline of events, however my case has not yet been assigned (I'm told it can take quite a while).
Which brings me up to today: I was browsing through my history in Chrome looking for a particular link when I stumbled upon some activity that brought up red flags to me. It was activity on the website of an offsite storage company I used to manage an account with at the company. When I clicked on the link itself I was able to see that this was accessed by someone using my old work computer. I used Google Chrome at work and it is what I also use at home. Because the accounts are linked, the history is all aggregated to my Gmail account, allowing me to see their activity. Apparently someone had bypassed my Windows login and was using my personal company account to access the offsite storage website through my Chrome browser. What shocked me was within this same session, my PERSONAL Gmail account was not only accessed, but snooped around in, in apparently an effort to uncover information. Emails concerning my termination in correspondence with others were opened.
Here is a [now removed] photo of the web activity, all coming from my old work computer. Keep in mind this is nearly 6 months since I've been employed here, this is just the only instance I have caught this activity, it is absolutely likely there were previous instances.
Clearly they are going through my PRIVATE email looking for specific information regarding my termination. This is a huge breach of privacy. Obviously I immediately changed my Gmail password, as well as any other important passwords (everything is linked to my Gmail).
My question now is, what do I do with this information? I'm still waiting to hear from the State about the retaliation claim, do I go to a lawyer? Do I contact the company telling them I have photographic evidence someone was snooping around my Gmail?
Thanks for reading, any help or insight would be greatly greatly appreciated, thank you!
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