I have an employee that decided to open and view another employees paystub and possibly spoke with friends and family about the persons paystub on the details within the paystub with out the other employees consent or even knowledge of the action of the other employee. Is this grounds for firing the employee with out the ability to be qualified for unemployeement insurance in the state of South Carolina.

Ws this a mistake on the employee's part? "Possibly" does not help you legally.

How did this employee get access to the paystub? Did they open a sealed envelope or did the employee who's paystub it was leave it laying around or what? Does your company have a stated policy about payroll privacy?

Personally, I would definitely fire the employee. This is a breach of ethics that I would not accept. However, whether its enough to deny unemployment, I'm not sure without more info.

This employee left the unsealed pay stub in their mailbox which is in a public area, and the other employee who looked at it had told another employee that they did

This employee left the unsealed pay stub in their mailbox which is in a public area, and the other employee who looked at it had told another employee that they did

I don't know what happened, but I moved this response from a new thread posted with the same question. I'm guessing the OP of this thread couldn't access their account to provide feedback. And that this post was in answer to question asked in the previous thread.

The new thread has been closed.

Whether the mailbox is in a public area or not, the mailboxes should be considered private and to take the pay envelope from that mailbox was a breach of ethics that would be enough to terminate the employee.

If you have any further follow-up, please respond to this thread.

Maybe the paystubs should start to be sealed. Talk to this employee about writing them up or whatever company policies you have in place. In my state you can fire any one for no reason at all. Not sure if your state is 'at will' or not or if this would be grounds if its not. It most likely is reason enough to fire.

I would fire. I see no reason why employers quake about every transgression (except for the fact that employees these days seem to think they have all sorts of rights). Except for matters of Civil Rights, you do what you feel is right, if it isn't defined in written company policy. Government employees (fed, state, local) are usually covered by all sorts of extra policy, but that doesn't apply to private employers.

The employee that accessed the other employees paystubs went through there desk drawers to find the stub opened the paystub read the contents and began to question the owner/manager on why the employee received certain pays on vacations and sick days.

Sorry for the late response