Is it OK to secretly record workplace conversations?

Desk Report: With smartphones in every pocket, purse and cubicle in America, it’s easier than ever to discreetly record a workplace conversation. Just look at Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former White House aide who slipped her phone into the secure Situation Room to record private conversations, including her firing by Chief of Staff John Kelly.
In cases of alleged workplace sexual harassment or discrimination, many workers believe that a lewd or racist comment caught on tape will be the “smoking gun” that nails a toxic boss or co-worker.But for workers in 11 states — including California, Illinois and Florida — secretly recording a workplace conversation not only will not be admissible as evidence in a harassment lawsuit, but could land the accuser in jail.
Kristin Case is an employment lawyer in Chicago, Illinois, which has one of the most restrictive statutes in America when it comes to recording workplace conversations. If she gets a phone call from a prospective client saying they have a smartphone recording of a boss or co-worker making inappropriate sexual comments, Case does the lawyerly equivalent of putting her hands over her ears.”I can’t listen to that recording, which drives me crazy,” says Case. “I tell them, ‘I don’t want you to send it to me and I can’t listen to it. I can’t be a participant in any of this.’ Which kills me because I know it must have good information on it.”
Residents of Illinois and 10 other states are held to the “two-party consent” rule. To record a conversation where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, you must get consent from the other person. In fact, it’s really an “all-party” consent rule, says Case, since you technically have to get permission from each person being recorded, even if it’s a full conference room.The other 39 states, plus Washington, D.C., have a “one-party consent” rule, which means that only one person in a conversation needs to know that it’s being recorded. So if you record a co-worker explaining why certain racial or ethnic minorities don’t belong in executive positions, you don’t need to tell her a thing. The only consent needed is yours.
That means that if you live in a one-party state, a particularly damning recording of a boss or co-worker can absolutely be a “gamechanger” for a harassment or discrimination lawsuit, says Tom Spiggle, an employment attorney in the Washington, D.C., area.