employment privacy?

Question

My husband and i have worked at the same company for many years, we recently turned in our resignations, giving 2 wks notice. the current company we are with has an out sourced management company that takes care of all of our, payroll, benifits and all human resources, we are starting at another company in jan, and that company has the same management company as my current employer. needless to say my current employer is not happy about our decision to leave . the management company with our current employer decided to call our new employer we are starting with and Warn them of hiring us. is this a breech of our rights and did they have the right to contact them , do we have any legal rights? we have never been repremanded at our current company for any problems. and also received letters of recommendations. i feel this managment company is in a breech of our privacy rights. any insight would be greatly appericated

Answer 1

If the new company did not ask for a recommendation from the old company, and they said things that aren't true, they have violated your rights, but not your privacy rights. You could sue the old company for defamation and loss of income if the new company decides not to hire you based on the statements of the old company. Just keep in mind, you may be defamed, but you've got to have some damages before you can sue.

Answer 2

I would take it up with the outsourced manager first. Find out why they would put through such a call and was it on the first company's behalf that they called? Otherwise they had no rhyme or reason to do this to you. If anything, let them look crazy for interceding. I would call your future employer if you had really bad blood with your last employer; otherwise let your future employer come to the realization that your last employer was possessive.