|
|
|
|||||
|
Dear George- I write to ask the opinion of your many readers. I wish to shed some sunshine on an issue that came across my desk recently. It seems UVA gave or sold all of their employees names and addresses to Bank One for a credit card solicitation. This was in cahoots with the Alumni Association. Evidently for every credit card that UVA employees got, the University would get a kickback ($). An employee immediately called Leonard Sandridge's office and was rudely told that due to the Freedom of Information Act, UVA was obligated to give Bank One names and home addresses. When Bank One was called they unhappily admitted that this list would then be sold to other companies for solicitation purposes. I then sent UVA a FOIA request of my own (as a test) to see if SUUVA could get the database list of all the employees. I, of course, was turned down. UVA's Carol Wood said that the "release of personnel information is exempt from the provisions of the Virginia FOIA as stated in Section 2.2-3705 (A(4). In other words, the University is given discretion as to when such information is released". I didn't ask for personnel records which I know is private. I just asked for names and addresses which were given without the employee's permission to Bank One. Ms. Wood also sent me a UVA phone book to use. Ms. Wood also told me that "in the case of Bank One, the University provided the names and addresses of employees to the Alumni Association for the sole purpose of initiating an affinity credit card program that would help support the core academic programs of the University". SO, UVA now is using employees to raise money to keep them in business? I have to wonder what will happen when UVA becomes decentralized from the state and isn't getting hardly any state support? Will employees have to start paying UVA to have the privilege of working there??? I just wonder what is next. Will self insured UVA begin to give out our medical records so pharmaceutical companies can start sending us junk mail solicitations for any medicines we might be taking? And people ask me why we need a union here? Seems obvious to me. While our lawyer told me this is not illegal, it certainly is unethical. With credit card debt and bankruptcies at an all time high in this country, I have to wonder why UVA would want to see their employees get more into debt. Jan Cornell (electronic mail, March 12, 2004)
|
