I recently resigned from a VERY HOSTILE work place. The CO is dishonest and unprofessional. I left after 20 years since his constant mind games were ruining my health. No that I am trying to find another position I think he is giving untrue information to further harass me. I want to have a professional friend call and act as a potential employer to verify my thoughts. Is this legal? Can the call be recorded and used? Ohio law allows a call to be recorded if one of the parties knows its being recorded.

There's no law to prevent someone from getting a job reference, whether they are thinking of hiring you or not. So sure, have a friend try.
Where is this law that only one party has to know about a recording? That makes no sense.
Recordings don't stand up in court unless done by law enforcement, because they can be so easily manipulated.
Before you have your fantasies about suing your former employer, along with all sorts of fancy testimony, find out of this is happening or not.
Maybe you are going about your job interviews all wrong - I hope you aren't saying what you say here about your employer. Plus, the economy is still dog eat dog, and you aren't any younger, and your salary requirements or even just what your salary was might be a deterrent.

Thank you for your input. I do not talk bad about my former employer and maybe it is my fantasy is they do the same. I do not want to start a law suit I just want a fair chance to move forward.

Hard job market, and quitting a job before finding another one, can be professional suicide because most new places will "assume" you were fired or quit before they fired you,
While not true, this is at times a belief. Also, this is just a very bad job market, and assume you age, being older makes finding a job harder

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Originally Posted by joypulv

Where is this law that only one party has to know about a recording? That makes no sense.

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Actually, as I recall, this is the law in the majority of US states. The law falls into three category. Double, single and none. Some states require both parties to be aware of the recording (Double). Most require one party knowing (Single) and some don't permit recording at all.

But making the recording and using it in court are different things.

Also, the reference would only be illegal if deliberate lies were told. For example, if the person giving the reference said, "I had a hard time working with him", that's not a deliberate lie.

Finally, for you to recover damages would require proof that you lost a job due to a reference containing false info.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joypulv

Where is this law that only one party has to know about a recording? That makes no sense.
Recordings don't stand up in court unless done by law enforcement, because they can be so easily manipulated.

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Even though this makes no sense it is the law in some states and can hold up in court.

You can check NO where it says is it okay to contact this employer and then explain that you feel they are having a personal problem with you therefore giving bad referrals. That the fact you were there 20 years speaks for itself.

You can also use employees from that job as personal references to back you up on that.

Seems I've been living in only two party states for most of my life.

I looked up some of the laws and they are confusing, because they seem to be lumped under wiretapping, which presumes the situation I was thinking of: neither party. Which should be totally separate, and I believe it is, depending on the state.

State-by-State Recording Laws