Aurora: DEFCON: Why conference harassment matters [LWN.net]

Aurora: DEFCON: Why conference harassment matters

Posted Aug 24, 2012 17:34 UTC (Fri) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]

As some other people already indicated, that policy would be likely considered harassment by your employer here, that's how "sensible" it is...

Who you date is part of your private life, and as such it's legally forbidden (in many/most jurisdictions here in Europe) for your employer to force you to disclose this. Except in special situations, but a labour judge would only accept that for proportionally serious reasons. Proportional means that the more your privacy gets violated, the stronger the reason for it has to be. In this policy there is a very invasive violation of your privacy which is mostly unnecessary and ineffective. There is too much "collateral damage".

Of course a company can make rules about the requirement to report a conflict of interest when it happens, but that's something entirely different (not every relationship causes one, and they can occur because of other reasons too). Same goes about harassment: of course a company can make a policy about that, but it should target harassment, and not innocent bystanders.

Aurora: DEFCON: Why conference harassment matters

Posted Aug 27, 2012 19:11 UTC (Mon) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

> Nobody forces you to expose your private live

?! What about "Coworkers are not allowed to date without a dating contract, dating without informing your line manager is grounds for termination." ???

This seems like *forcing* (under penalty of termination) someone to *expose* (informing your line manager) your *private life* (dating).

> there are just requirements to make sure you can do your job properly.

Adults can do their job properly even if they work with their dates/spouses.

> Probably part of your employment contract.

Probably not, in any part of the planet that isn't the USofA, and this is the reason I think this is IMMENSELY funny. In many countries this clauses are just illegal, null and void; in others, the attempt to enforce rules like those can be construed as harassment, with criminal penalties.

Dating coworkers

Posted Aug 28, 2012 1:53 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Note that, while dating is a private matter, marriage is a public affair. Companies in e.g. Spain can regulate the roles for married couples: both spouses sometimes cannot work in the same area, or one reporting to the other, and so on. But I have never heard of a company where they tried to regulate private dating. (I worked in one place where dating coworkers was frowned upon, but of course not grounds for termination.)