"It made me sick to my stomach. The stress level was unbelievable," said Katherine Thompson, describing her reaction when she found out her emails were being monitored. (CBC)

An eastern Ontario union executive has launched a lawsuit against the Canadian Union of Public Employees, accusing a colleague of violating her privacy by reading her emails.

Katherine Thompson, of South Lancaster, Ont., who is currently president for the Air Canada component of CUPE, is seeking $250,000 in damages through a civil suit launched against CUPE, national president Paul Moist and Lesley Swann, former president of CUPE's Air Canada component.

Thompson alleges that in the fall of 2007, when she was secretary-treasurer and Swann was the component president, Swann blackmailed an IT consultant into providing access to Thompson's emails, and then went through the correspondence to spy on her.

"It made me sick to my stomach," Thompson said Monday. "The stress level was unbelievable.

"We'd never condone an employer spying on an employee. So these actions were very contrary to what trade unionism is all about."

Brian Shell, a Toronto lawyer representing Swann, said the email system is the exclusive property of CUPE'S Air Canada component, and Thompson had no reasonable expectation of privacy. Shell said Swann did read Thompson's emails, but did so because she believed Thompson broke the union's own bylaws.

"Why shouldn't the server, which is the responsibility of the president, be available to the president to find out whether in fact this important bylaw has been violated?" he asked.

A lawyer for CUPE's national office declined an interview, saying the matter is an internal one within the Air Canada component.

Thompson said she found out her emails were being read after an IT consultant told her he had been told to provide access to them, and that his job would've been on the line if he hadn't complied with her request.

She later defeated Swann in an election to become president of the CUPE's Air Canada component. Thompson claims there is no CUPE policy that allows union officials to do what Swann did.

Ontario law not clear: lawyer

Her lawyer Kris Klein said He and Thompson are also trying to find out whether it was legally allowed under Ontario law.

"There is an expectation of privacy in the communications that happen at work," he said, although he added that he and his client recognize that the right to privacy is not absolute.

Klein said federal law only protects the electronic privacy of some employees and doesn't apply to his client. However, Ontario currently has no specific legislation dealing with this type of circumstance, he added.

"The employee is left without any understanding of … what circumstances will arise where their privacy will be invaded."

He hopes the case will bring more clarity to workplace privacy law in Ontario in general.

In the meantime, he thinks employers and employees should sit down and set a policy for that, and he encourages employers not to eliminate all expectations of privacy at work.

"I think that doesn't recognize the way people live and work today," he said, adding that many people do mix their work and personal lives nowadays.

The statement of claim for the lawsuit was originally filed in May 2008, and the stage before the request for a trial date is now almost complete. Before resorting to a lawsuit, Thompson said she complained to CUPE and asked for an apology, but did not get one.

CUPE's Air Canada component represents 6,700 flight attendants at Air Canada.

In April, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that a teacher had no expectation of privacy in information stored on his work laptop. The teacher had been charged with possession of child pornography after the school board asked IT staff to check his laptop and found photos of a nude 16-year-old grade 10 student on the computer.