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60. “Employers should have no right to obtain information about their employees’ health or other aspects of their personal lives without the employees’ permission.”
“没有雇员的同意时，雇主应该没有权力去了解他的雇员的健康状况和其他的私人生活方面的信息。”
1， 员工的私人生活状况，很可能影响工作效率。productivity and turnover，所以雇主有理由关心。比如，健康问题，良好的健康状况显然是保障正常稳定生产的基础，雇主付出相同的钱，expect to get certain productivity. 而员工隐瞒健康状况，造成的低效率高成本，会使公司suffer。在雇佣时拥有对称的信息，很重要。
2， 同时，员工的私人状况，如果会危害到其他员工，那么应该有权得这知。比如，健康状况，犯罪的历史等等重大事件。健康，会infect other employee/ 暴力 history of crimes violence 很可能会对其他的员工造成伤害。这些都是必须要知道的。
3， 但有一些其他的私人生活，与工作效率无关，而且不是threat to others。employer 没有权力获取。比如，婚姻状况marital status, religion, race…这些都应该是员工自愿提供的with permission，而不能强制获得force。
View1: as human resources is one of the most important fortunes to a company, companies should know the health conditions of their employees. Decide whether a worker is competent for a job, decide cost on medical cares, ensure productivity
View2: other aspects of employees’ personal life, if not directly related to work performance, are not need to expose to employers.
Determining whether employers should have access to personal information about employees requires that the interests of businesses in ensuring productivity and stability be weighed against concerns about equity and privacy interests. On balance (adv. 总而言之), my view is that employers should not have the right to obtain personal information about current employees without their consent.
A business’ interest in maintaining a stable, productive workforce clearly justifies right of access to certain personal information about prospective employees. Job applicants can easily conceal personal information that might adversely affect job performance, thereby damaging the employer in terms of low productivity and high turnover. During employment, however, the employee’s interests are far more compelling than those of the employer, for three reasons.
First, the employer has every opportunity to monitor ongoing job performance and to replace workers who fail to meet standards, regardless of the reason for that failure. Second, allowing free access to personal information about employees might open the floodgates to discriminatory promotions and salary adjustments. Current federal laws—which protect employees from unfair treatment based on gender, race, and marital status, may not adequately guard against an employer’s searching for an excuse to treat certain employees unfairly. Third, access to personal information without consent raises serious privacy concerns, especially where multiple individuals have access to the information. Heightening this concern is the ease of access to information which our burgeoning electronic Intranets make possible.
In sum, ready access to certain personal information about prospective employees is necessary to protect businesses; however, once hired, an employee’s interest in equitable treatment and privacy far outweighs the employer’s interest in ensuring a productive and stable workforce.
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