TERMS OF USE This page states the "Terms of Use" under which you may access the Working America (WA) website, which includes Ask-A-Lawyer, a service to educate workers with general information about employment laws in America. By accessing this WA website, you are indicating your acceptance to be bound by the provisions of these Terms of Use. If you do not accept the Terms of Use stated here, do not access the site. WA may revise these Terms of Use at any time by updating this posting. You should visit this page periodically to review the Terms of Use, because they are binding on you. The terms "you" and "User" as used herein refer to all individuals and/or entities accessing this web site for any reason. 1. Eligibility. By visiting this site and/or accepting these Terms of Use, you represent and warrant that you are 18 years of age or older, and that you have the right, authority and capacity to agree to and abide by these Terms of Use. You also represent and warrant that you will use the website in a manner consistent with any and all applicable laws and regulations. 2. Editorial Policy for Ask-A-Lawyer. a. WA will edit questions or other submissions for length, to maintain anonymity, and to remove content that is copyrighted or deemed irrelevant, profane, potentially defamatory, inflammatory or otherwise inappropriate, in its sole discretion. The name of a company, any personal names or nicknames or any other personal identifiers will be removed and/or the submission not posted at the sole discretion of WA. WA reserves the right not to publish and the right not to publish a particular submission in any form. b. WA reads every e-mail submitted, but cannot provide a response to every submission because of the large volume received. 3. Legal Disclaimer. a. No Attorney-Client Relationship is Established. WA will respond on the website with answers which provide an analysis and discussion for general informational purposes and which explain general legal principles and trends. Legal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case and WA cannot provide specific legal advice or tell you what to do in your particular situation. Answers may or may not be applicable to your individual circumstances. Also, since the law changes rapidly, varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and is subject to interpretation by the courts, WA does not guarantee that any information on the Ask-a-Lawyer web site is accurate and up to date. We recommend that you consult a licensed lawyer who is knowledgeable about the area of law in question before you take action to address a legal matter. Participating in the Ask-a-Lawyer website does not establish an attorney client relationship or privilege. b. Waiver of Claims and Remedies WA does NOT vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any posting or the qualifications of any person responding. WA, its employees, agents, or others that provide information on or through this web site will not be liable or responsible to you for any claim, loss, injury, liability, or damages, including lost wages or benefits, related to your use of this site or any site linked to this site, or for any claims by third parties. In addition, you agree, at your own expense, to defend and indemnify us and hold us harmless against all claims that may be asserted against us, and all losses incurred, as a result of your complaint/question and/or our response to it. 4. Use of Questions and Submissions. All questions and submissions become the property of WA, may be used for any purpose without permission of the participant or any consideration apart from participation in accordance with these guidelines, and will not be returned. 5. Privacy Policy. WA has created this privacy notice to explain how we use information that you may provide while visiting our website and to demonstrate our firm commitment to Internet privacy. WA may modify this policy from time to time so we encourage you to check this page when revisiting this website. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this website. The type and amount of information received depends on how you use the site. a. Website Usage/Information Collection When you visit the WA website, we automatically obtain information from you about the name of your Internet service provider, the browser and type of computer you are using, the website that referred you to us, the pages you request and the date and time of those requests. We use this information on an aggregate basis to generate statistics and measure site activity to improve the usefulness of the site to our visitors. For example, we use this information to track which pages are most popular among visitors as a whole. We do not track the pages you or any individual visitor may look at during a visit to our site and we do not collect any other information without your knowledge and permission. We do not collect or store personally identifiable information, such as your name, mailing address, e-mail address or phone number, unless you separately provide that information to us. b. Collection of Personally Identifiable Information WA provides Web forms so you may provide your contact information to participate in WA activities such as online activism (i.e., contact Congress), responding to polling and surveys, to place orders for products or services, to correspond with WA or to submit a testimonial (i.e., share your story). Any information we collect, such as your name, mailing address, e-mail address, type of request you are making and any additional information you provide, is collected and stored by WA. The information is used to fulfill your request and track aggregate information about usage of these features. WA makes every effort to ensure the secure collection and transmission of your sensitive information using industry accepted data collection and encryption methodologies, such as SSL (Secure Socket Layer). c. WA's Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information If you identify yourself as a member of an AFL-CIO affiliate union or the Alliance for Retired Americans, WA may exchange limited personally identifiable information you provide (such as name and e-mail address) with the AFL-CIO and its partner organizations. The WA website will not post your personal contact information, including e-mail address, street address and phone numbers, on the web site without your consent. d. Financial Information and Payments We use a secure server for processing payments and financial information. WA staff log in to the secure site, retrieve the information and process it. The WA does not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes. e. Cookies A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's hard drive containing information about the user. The WA website uses a cookie for measuring aggregate web statistics, including number of monthly visitors, number of repeat visitors, most popular web pages and other information. WA will also use cookies to facilitate your online visit by maintaining data that you provide for online activism activities so that you will not need to resubmit certain information. WA does not use cookies to track what specific pages an individual site visitor views. f. Opting Out of E-mail Lists People who subscribe to e-mail lists via the website will receive periodic updates from WA by regular mail, fax or e-mail. You may opt out of receiving future information via e-mail by using the unsubscribe procedure specified on the e-mail message or by sending an e-mail message with the name of the list to which you are subscribed to: info@workingamerica.org. g. Outside Links This site contains hypertext links to other sites. WA is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site, and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website. h. Security This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. We use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to protect the transmission of information you submit to us when you use our secure online forms. You are on a secure page when the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer become locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when you are just "surfing." All the information you provide us through these forms is stored securely off-line. We use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also protect user information off-line. All user information is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need information to perform a specific job (e.g., our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. All employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. Finally, the servers that store sensitive information are kept in a secure environment. If you send us an e-mail, you should know that e-mail is not necessarily secure against interception. If your communication includes sensitive information like your bank account, charge card, or social security number, and you prefer not to use one of our secure online complaint forms, contact us by mail or by telephone rather than by e-mail. i. Corrections/Updating Personal Information If your personal information changes (such as your ZIP code), or if you wish to have your information removed from our database, contact us and we will endeavor to provide a way to correct, update or remove that personal data provided to us. 6. WA Restrictions. Users may not use the WA website to transmit, distribute, store or destroy material, including without limitation, this website's content (a) in violation of any applicable law or regulation, (b) in a manner that will infringe the copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights of others or violate the privacy, publicity or other personal rights of others, or (c) in a manner that is defamatory, obscene, threatening, abusive or hateful. Users are also prohibited from violating or attempting to violate the security of the WA site, including, without limitation, the following activities: (a) attempting to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without proper authorization; (b) attempting to interfere with communication to any user, host or network, including, without limitation, via means of submitting a virus to this or any AFL-CIO site, overloading, "flooding", "spamming", "mailbombing" or "crashing;" or (c) solicitation or advertisement. Violations of system or network security may result in civil or criminal liability. The AFL-CIO or WA will investigate occurrences that may involve such violations and may involve, and cooperate with, law enforcement authorities in prosecuting users who are involved in such violations. 7. Disclaimer of Warranty. The AFL-CIO and WA do not warrant that WA, including its Ask-A-Lawyer service, will operate error-free or that the servers are free of computer viruses or other harmful mechanisms. If your use of the website results in the need for servicing or replacing equipment or data, the AFL-CIO or WA is not responsible for those costs. In no event shall the AFL-CIO or WA be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, incidental and consequential damages, lost profits, or damages resulting from lost data or business interruption) resulting from the use or inability to use the site, whether based on warranty, contract, tort, or any other legal theory, and whether or not the AFL-CIO or WA is advised of the possibility of such damages. The AFL-CIO and WA to the fullest extent permitted by law, disclaims all warranties, whether express or implied. 8. Indemnity. You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the AFL-CIO and WA, their officers, employees and agents, from and against any claims, actions or demands, including without limitation reasonable legal and accounting fees, alleging or resulting from (i) any User Content or other material you provide to the WA Site, (ii) your use of any WA Content, or (iii) your breach of the terms of these Terms of Use. The AFL-CIO or WA shall provide notice to you of any such claim, suit, or proceeding. 9. Contact Us If you experience technical problems with the operation of this website, contact us by e-mail. www.aflcio.org
WA Online Organizer
815 16th St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
202-637-5000 You also may contact us by mail or telephone. These communications will also be governed by these Terms of Use. Click here to return to the Question Submission Guidelines. | 
