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Plow Operators Object to GPS Tracking System
An anonymous reader writes "The Boston Globe is reporting on a dispute between private plowing contractors and the state highway department. The state has mandated all trucks to equip with GPS enabled cellphones for tracking. The drivers have refused, just in time for a big winter storm. The latest seems to be that they have reached a compromise (no details yet), but the dispute highlights the public safety versus employee privacy issue. Presumably plowing could be more efficient and possibly save lives during storms if the trucks could be tracked.. a good thing. Or is this simply a step closer to an Orwellian society, where the State knows where we all are?" This earlier story does a much better job of detailing their grievances - apparently it's about money as much as anything, with the GPS tracking system being only a secondary issue.
There was a recent NPR story on the recent rise of GPS usage amongst company cars. Interesting stuff, and they mention a little about unions' concern as well.
rimshot
seriously, i don't see how this is orwellian in the least
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think the same applies to the pilots. It always bothers me when the radars track their airplane's position real time.
There should be a way for them to "opt-out". A "stealth mode" button will be nice. Pilots do not need the big-brother constantly watching them.
Privacy issue my ass.
It's a contractual issue.
The employer (which happens to be the state) wants to know if the employee is really doing the work (or as much of the work as) the employee claims.
This is not about tracking where I go after work, or if I visit my mistress for an extra-martial screw.
It's all about ensuring the state gets what it pays for, and any tracking is done exclusively during the employee's work.
This is legal, and this is good.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
My Dad is one of the private contractors, and he tells me the problem is that most plowboys think GPS costs thousands of dollars. I keep telling him you can get decent GPS equipment for under a grand these days. J
The latest seems to be that they have reached a compromise (no details yet)
...apparently it's about money as much as anything
Here's an interesting story about GPS, but details aren't available yet, and it's not actually about GPS (but I've written the first half of the story submission, so I'll just click Submit anyway.)
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If you are being paid to plow a street, shouldn't the state be allowed to audit whether you've done the work or not? It seems that the only people who would/should be concerned here are those that are overcharging the state.
Oftentimes I find that the claims of "big brother" or misquotes of Orwell are made by those striving to protect their illicit activities.
They're being paid by the hour (and quite well, $42-$300 according to the article) and the government wants to make sure they're actually working while they're getting paid.
While I'm working I have a cell phone and two-way pager strapped to my hip at all times. It's my employer's business where I am when I should be working. I get my privacy back when I quit for the day and take those appliances off.
Work is not time to run the kids to school, run errands, or do anything besides work.
Of course this is hypocrisy on my part. I'm at work right now wasting time on Slashdot. That said, plow operators have seasonal jobs. If any of them wants to give up their $300/hr gig (several times what I currently make per hour), I'll gladly trade with them, work my ass off for a few months, and then screw around for the rest of the year.
Game... blouses.
It's not clear from either of these stories 1) why the highway department wants them to have GPS, nor 2) why the contractors don't want to have it.
Are they planning some huge NORAD-like control room with huge screens and little dots for all the snowplows?
Are they having a problem with the drivers taking off time to make snow-angels? I don't get it.
As already pointed out, this is entirely about an attempt to control cost, providing the contractors a tool to measure miles.
Given the task of monitoring the routes covered by a thousand contractors' trucks it sounds like a decent solution too.
Yes I live in boston, and we're about to get hammered by a predicted 16"+ of snow. Oh joy
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
It's tracking the plows. The government may not have the right to track where people go, but surely it has a right to track where government property goes.
This is nothing more than employees getting irate about losing their unofficial extended coffee breaks.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Or is this simply a step closer to an Orwellian society, where the State knows where we all are?
Am I the only one that's getting tired of these comments? What Slashdotters need to do is to seperate fiction from facts and weed out the conspiracies. Preaching death of the world we know it is fun and all, but every little thing in the news isn't a sign of it. Calm down, guys. Okay?
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
The problem is we sub-contracted most of the snow removal jobs to the lowest bidder. Yup you guessed it, the lowest bidder was Jeff and Ackbar's shovel your driveway/interstate business.
A few winters ago, I was driving through a major snowstorm with about 8-10 inches of snow on the highway. I drove for over 150 kilometers and saw only one snowplow. And guess what he was doing?
He was parked on the side of the road drinking a coffee and taking a really long break. How do I know this? That was the funniest part, the snow was just as deep infront of him as it was behind him. He must have been sitting there quite awhile.
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
... for me to realise y'all meant snow-ploughs. Haven't seen one for over a decade, and initially thought there was some farmer ploughing his neighbours fields without permission...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I have a new cell phone, a freebie given to me by Verizon Wireless when I renewed my contract. I didn't even notice that it was GPS capable until it was pointed out to me be somebody else.
Apparently, if I call 911, they know within 50 feet or so where I am, unless I disable the GPS feature.
So, how hard could it be? Are we talking rocket science, or people bitching for the sake of bitching?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
would never put up with this type of thing.
If this is a cell that stays in the plow.... oh too fucking bad. It's a job. Your boss wants to make sure you're doing it. Get over it.
It would be a different issue if the plow drivers had to have GPS installed on their personal cell phones but this is probably not the case.
You'd think in a world where unemployement is such a problem people wouldn't bitch and whine over the trivials like this. I'm mean you're on the job. Your location is not private anyways [because you're supposed to follow a route]. The mgmt just wants to make sure you do the work.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I've heard some unions in the US are pretty bad for that but I don't think it's true of all unions, and certainly not many in the UK. I'm a union shop steward and I spend most of my Union time protecting members basic rights and pointing out when managers are breaking the law or going against their own written procedures. Sometimes you do have to do things and represent people that you'd rather not but when it comes down to it if you let management get away with an abuse against someone you don't like or has done something wrong then it weakens your case when they try the same thing against someone who is innocent. It's like if the Federal Government breach an ammendment to secure a conviction against a paedophile then the ACLU has to defend the paedophile, not because they want to defend paedophiles but because they have to defend the bill of rights. If the ACLU let them get away with it once then it weakens their arguement in all other cases.
Unionisation can work well for both employers and the employed as it gives a forum for the raising of grievences and for negotiation. It also means that individual managers often have someone around who is knowedgable about the procedures and can advise them (most of the queries about procedures I get are from managers as they individually probably only have to apply many of them once every few years but I am constantly involved in them so can tell the managers (many of whom are also union members) how those procedures work).
As a shop steward I will campaign for fair pay, people doing the same job to the same level should be paid the same; equiable treatment, no one should be refused promotion or subject to harsher disapline simply becuase of their race, gender, faith or simply because their manager doesn't like them; safe working practices, we have laws about health and safety in the workplace thsat managers should follow. What I will oppose is people being paid for more than their labour or worth. Having said that I do support minimum time payments for 'call out staff'. I've sure that any of us who have done 'call out' work will have at least once had a call where we've had to go into the office/data centre or whatever and the time it took to actually do the job was so short that it would cost us more in gas to go in than we would get paid. But I think one to two hours would be reasonable, four hours (unless there's a good reason) seems a bit excessive to me.
On the subject of the story the way I figure it is that if I'm at work then my employer has a right to know what I'm doing and where I am. As soon as I clock out that right ceases.
Stephen
"Don't write down to your readers, the only people less intelligent than you can't read" - Sign on Newspaper Office Wall
Outfit the trucks with GPS equipment that the driver can turn off when he's done working?
I mean, sure when the driver is off of the clock what he does is his own business. But when he is on the clock, getting paid the money of the taxpayers, it is not unreasonable to expect him to account for all of that time. Is he really working, or is he "visiting" with his girlfriend?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is as much the case as the Time and Motion aspect.
I'd find a way to remove the tracking device and attach it to a taxi, a bus, or a police car. I don't operate a snow plow, but I am in a company truck all day.
i can't beleive i said "unions are a misuse of power" I usually go by the rule "never say never, always say sometimes", but you are right, Unions are a double edged sword/mixed blessing. I wholeheartedly agree that unions are necessary, or should I say the idea of unions are necessary. The idea of centralization for the people, the "underdogs" is needed because companies that employ union workers are by nature, already centralized. Workers need to be able to react to their manager's actions as quickly as possible so that managers don't take advantage. I come from the theater/stagehand business and unions here are more or less a pain. Especially in south-western Ohio where the IATSE is decentralized (independent from the rest of the world's IATSE) and therefor, making it impossible for workers that have gained their 4 years of experience in this union to go to any other union. There was a Steward who came to our theater school and tried to give a speech on unions and practically got shot down on the stage while answering questions because they basically say, regardless of how much time you have spent in college, u start out at the same pay level if you're a high school drop out or a college grad from a highly accredited tech theater school. That enraged the crowd because the union does not take into consideration the hard work that we have all put into college. It's "good old boy" unions like these that can sometimes cause problems. Sometimes I forget, after trying to work with IATSE that there are actual good normal unions out there serving their purpose. -P
So your mistake was quite a reasonable one!!!
When you read this title and your first thought is about Norvig's General Problem Solver, you know that you've had enough of the CS courses and you should definitely move on...
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
But contractors had balked, saying the phones were not proven reliable as an accounting system used for payment.
Nothing is mentioned about an invasion of privacy or an Orwellian allusion. Only us paranoid geeks brought this out.......we are from the government - we are here to help...
They're having them get GPS-equipped cellular phones and they want them to keep these phones 'on' while they are 'working for the state plowing roads'.
Before the availability of the GPS-equipped phones the State had to accept their logs of how much time they spent plowing roads with no other assurance than their word.
i have heard other companies upgrading their trucks towards this type of management. i have discussed this topic with the driver of the commercial garbage/dumpster pick-up service at the store I work for. a couple months ago, they upgraded all of their trucks with a GPS tracking system and so-called "tattle-tale" ("tattler") boxes, which start beeping if you stay too long in one place. he also has to scan barcodes at every stop so the computer records when and where service is made.
my first reaction was sympathy towards the driver's Orwellian fear. he said the drivers were filing many grievances with their union, but no major decision has been made as of yet.
later I realized that these are THE COMPANY'S equipment, so it seems they should have the right to know where their eqipment is and how it's being used. if the employees have a problem with doing their job, then they should look for other employment. this is, after all, what they get paid for.
there are, however, things that many people overlook---on both sides of the issue. the company may benefit from a precise tracking system so they can ensure their customers are receiving satisfactory service. customer satisfaction can obviously work in favor of the company in the form of more revenue. more revenue can mean more jobs or higher wages.
the driver i've spoken with also said that the "tattle tale" boxes are only triggered if you use the parking/emergency brake instead of just the foot pedal brake. he said he used to take quick 20-minute power naps before the tracking systems were installed, since his shift is so long. taking power naps, he said, is considered much safer than driving long hours without sleep. but now, if he engages the parking brake, the buzzer goes off and he risks punishment. he said some of his co-workers try to take these power naps with only their foot on the pedal brake to keep the buzzer from going off. obviously this isn't safe, especially when you consider that these trucks could easily be hauling over 10 tons of garbage.
my point is that the companies that install this type of equipment may not be considering all the counter-measures that their employees may take to avoid punishment, and some of these counter-measures may be unsafe. perhaps the motivation for attempting this tampering comes from ungrounded Orwellian fears or previous company-union disagreements.
Hey, if anyone knows the kind of gps-enabled cell phone they use, please let me know! I'm looking for something similar.
Thanks!
There are inefficiencies in every System in regard to people, always was and will be. To apply a surveillance system, which is similarly designed for convicted criminals, to people and workers is demoralizing and demeaning, maybe unless everyone has to participate from CEO down.
We already pay hugely for contract supervision; is that expense be automated, minimized and removed?
Additionally, it is sad that people will work for relatively meaningless benefit, under such control, trading their professional latitude for temporary and false security of said contracted work. The price of the contractor's professional latitude is now known in actual dollars and will be used against them in future bidding; the victim (or taxpaying winner) of human competition. Show savings of a dollar from the contractor while massive losses occur elsewhere.
Is not to play.
to have a safe "air car" system if we are to ever have such traffic in the sky. Maybe this is a step closer to that.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
A few days ago interviews on Boston television
stations had the independent contractors saying
that using a cellphone to provide GPS data while
plowing snow would be hazardous to traffic safety.
They cited a Massachusetts state police study that
showed how dangerous cellphones were while driving.
I was under the impression the Nextel phones used
for this project would be rigged to respond to a
coordinates request without operator involvement.
I know at least one Nextel phone is programmable
in Java by ordinary mortals.
Of course using a cellphone for this is a way for
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to get off cheap,
since for some time GPS transponders have been on
the market for long-distance trucks.
The issue isn't tracking the drivers. The issue is that this is one big step towards robotic plows that don't need drivers.
The drivers know this, and fear being replaced by machines, not being tracked.
There is no such thing as a stealth snow-plow.
Warning, there is a snowplow two feet behind you. Have a Nice Day!
Mind you, in the future, we'll all have flying cars and we won't need plows. Right?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
hahhhah *cough* PATRIOT ACT *cough* ahahaha
It's not the "patriot act" but the "USA PATRIOT Act". What's the difference? Oh just about everything the word patriot might stand for. It just doesn't sound quite as good when you spell it out, does it: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism"?
Full text of the Act here Nugget
You are looking at this like it's a technology job where skill matters. A good programmer is 10 times more valuable than a bad one, a good laborer is probably 25-50% better than a bad one. No matter how good you are a plowing the street, you don't have alot of leverage in convincing them that you are worth more money than the guy waiting to take your job. That's why they have unions, for better or worse.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
If the plows are owned by the state -not by the plow drivers- then I have no problem with the state putting GPS receivers in them. It's their property, after all; they could paint them bright pink and install loudspeakers on them that blare Yankee Doodle at max volume on repeat while the plows are running for all I care.
If, on the other hand, the plows are private vehicles, then we have a serious privacy issue here.
I though it was just a made up, joke country from the Simpsons or something. I never knew it was real!
Wow, learn something every day!
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
And to think I paid $100,000 and 8 years to get a scientific computing degree, and be unemployed.
I'll scab those bitches, and plow for 40$ an hour.
God spoke to me
Let me put things into perspective, since everyone seems to think this is an acceptable use of technology.
1 - Anyone who has wrangled with telecommute issues knows that bosses have a massive problem wrapping their brain around 'how can I tell if they're working if I can't count butts-in-chairs'? Yet previous threads show most slashdotters feel there are better ways to manage employees.
Likewise, even snowplowing has lots of performance metrics: verifiable complaints sounds like a start. Or spot checks (by whoever)
2 - If we start tracking miles, someone will get efficiency-expert on us and start comparing plow operators. The one with the most miles wins. Which means an operator that uses finesse to plow full-width and not leave berms of concrete-hard snow at driveways and around cars will rank below someone running full-speed and sloppy. For us, this is like paying a coder by lines of code (where verbose and poorly-refactored code wins!) or paying a researcher by the page-of-lab-results. It rewards a new flavor of cheating.
3 - The usual way of subcontracting to private firms doesn't help. We're too soft on incompetent/fraudulent contract awardees, and lowest-bid is too compelling. I've seen bids on projects that couldn't afford to cover maintenance/gas costs on the involved equipment if done right, let alone pay for staff. Yet they're the lowest bidder. Go back to my verifiable complaints suggestion, and add in some teeth to the contract. Ban a contractor for life for the first whiff of fraud. Backcharge them for any work you have to redo. Make it easy to void contracts if the job isn't done to standards. The rest of us have to operate to ISO standards, so can they.
Next, let's go to work on the 'I wear a pager' mindset. I don't wear a pager. I moved from job to job until I found a firm that doesn't obsess at this level. Now, I don't wear a pager, I have very flexible hours, I live in a low-cost region (so I am saving money like crazy), and I really enjoy the job. My job has very rigorous quality standards, though. That's what matters. How or when I do the work is not an issue. In fact, my current boss, when he calls, starts every conversation with 'Good time/ Bad time?', meaning I can break the call off without explanation. I realize that a paycheck is more important than the perks I've mentioned, and a pager is a minor compromise. But the boss doesn't own me. Not even for 8 hours a day. And just like the ill-informed butts-in-seats metric, I take notes on any abuse of my minimum standards for how I like to be treated. Then I update my resume. Then I move on.
Funny thing is, I'm making twice what I did when the boss was a control-freak.
So...
Make the drivers be in communication (cellphone, radio, or data-link like UPS/Fedex tracking systems use), use it to give them a prioritized list of targets. Make them report back 'done' status. Enforce a code of honor/ethics. Have stiff penalties for lying. If a GPS goes into the truck, make it be there for crisis/safety needs, or only to be used as confirming evidence in a hearing/trial. Otherwise, let them be. Reward excellence, whether it be speed or precision or both. Use penalties to guide others to the realization that 'maybe you're just not suited to this job'. Life's too short to be obsessing about the wrong details.
Oh... and I'm sure there's a 'tinfoil hat' or faraday cage that'd thwart GPS reception, and that word will get around once detected. That tactic used to work when I didn't want to receive pager signals...
I am in the middle of a bilzzard right now. I had to drive 22 miles home from work last night: time to drive 1 hour 45 min.
Number of plows or spreaders seen on the way home: 20
Number that were doing something other than sitting on a sidestreed parked with a 2nd plow: 2
Number of streets I was on that showed evidence of plowing 8 hours into storm: 1 (out of 7 streets I used to travel)
Don't know what they were waiting for but with 6 inches on the ground and up to 30 more on the way they should have been out in force.
The Lunatick, Carpe Corpus!
You must not be from around here...
there are, however, things that many people overlook---on both sides of the issue. the company may benefit from a precise tracking system so they can ensure their customers are receiving satisfactory service. customer satisfaction can obviously work in favor of the company in the form of more revenue. more revenue can mean more jobs or higher wages.
Normally when revinues are up the 1st thing that happens is raises for the execs, more perks for said execs, some more of the same equipment so that they can ensure that the draconion policies can be enforced, and then maybe, just maybe if there is any money left over, a few new jobs and a token raise.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Absolutely. Unions can definitely be a good thing, improving working conditions and pay. In fact, one could argue that without unions there would never have been a middle class; just a few ultra-rich capitalists, and zillions of working poor.
The problem with unions in the U.S. is mostly one of history - unions never really became a mass movement ("the American Dream": everyone thinks they are going to end up on top someday, and they want to be able to exploit everyone else when they do), employers never accepted unions, except in very limited situations when/where they were forced to, and unions only thrived in positions where they could effectively strangle businesses (garbage pickup, longshoremen, auto-manufacturing), creating a lot of inconvenience for everyone else in the process. Those unions concentrated on making a small number of their own rather wealthy, rather than expanding. The result is that unions are small and unpopular. Couple this with the particular history of organized crime and unions and they ended up with a serious image problem. To most people in the States "union" connotes a bunch of overpaid, underworked fat guys standing around on break, who you can't join unless you know uncle Tony. To most Swedes, "union" means those people who speak up for you if your workplace isn't safe.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
My company got them for those of us who work in the field, and most of us dislike them. The Java app/tracking service we use is called Telenav
Once that app is running (the i88s phones we have don't have the ability to auto-launch a Java app so it must be manually launched in the morning), it transmits the phone's GPS location every few minutes. My company's traffic manager can pull up a map in her web browser and see where all of us are at any given time.
Here's why we don't like the GPS crap: it completely rapes the battery. The original batteries in the i88s phones were getting sucked dry after being on for about 6 hours. We got new high capacity batteries for them which last the whole day, but by 5pm they are just about drained-- if you forget to plug the phone in to charge that night when you get home, you're screwed the next day. Our old i1000 phones could go 3 days before needing a charge.
Also, the GPS is a little laggy, so the navigation function doesn't work well. If you're driving at highway speeds, it doesn't tell you where to turn until you have already passed that intersection. D'oh!
~Philly
More efficient: it ensures drivers are actually plowing, and not sleeping or drinking coffee or at a bar. Also can be used to locate plows and dispach the closest ones to trouble spots.
Save lives: see above, more/clearer roads faster = safer roads. If a snowplow driver is near an accident, tracking can alert dispatch to this. If a snowplow has an accident, dispatch can locate them easily (think OnStar)
I have blog like everyone else
...but I don't see putting a tracking device in a plow truck as a bad thing. This would allow better coordination of the trucks. Last night, I drove 30 miles in 3 inch deep snow. I watched the other direction on the highway get plowed and plowed over several times, but my side? It seemed like no one had even bothered to touch it.
Now you'd think after 30 miles at least one township would stop and say "Sh*t, we never did plow the southbound lane on Route 8!"
I could see if they where trying to track people around their homes, etc. But this is emergency vehicle coordination. I think the plow guys are just mad they can't get paid to stop at Wendy's and eat now.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
It seems no one has mentioned yet good old Massachusetts politics, in other words, "everybody takes a piece of the pie".
Out here its not uncommon to call up one of the guys, who's getting paid by the state, to come by and plow a section of the road for you, and shoving all that snow into the car ahead.
This is called favors, and it loves to run rampant in this great state. Since most of the plow operators are independent self-employeed bunch, that own there own trucks, they probably don't take too kindly to the state wanting to keep tabs on them. But, at the same point, the my town (worcester) went into debt solely because of the snow storms last year.
Ah well. So thats why I think they don't want the GPS thingies. Don't wanna get caught doing two jobs at the same time.
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
Somebody call the waaaaambulance for the poor, well paid snow plow operators.
If they are on the job, their employer, in this case the state, has every right to know where they are and what they are doing. They are getting paid to do a job, and they have the gaul to say it's not the states right to know if they are doing the job they are being paid for?
What a load of crap. The only ones complaining about this are the ones that slack off and get paid for work they haven't done. I'm all for slacking, god knows I do it enough at my job, but I *know* that I'm suppose to be doing XXX job, if my boss chooses to audit whether I'm doing it or not, then that's his right.
I'm salaried, so as long as my work gets done, no one cares when I actually do the work, so long as it gets done by the deadline. But if I was getting paid by the hour, you can bet your ass my boss would make sure they are getting their hourly wages worth.
If I were the state, I'd be doing the exact same thing, and the ones bitching and complaining would be marked as the slackers bilking the state for work they never performed.
Piss of whiney bitches. It's my tax dollars paying your salary, so suck it up and drive (plow)on... if you don't like it, someone else will do it.
Using a GPS system to track the snow plows just makes good sense.
Everybody who lives in an area that gets snow knows just how capricious the plowing schedule is. In the big snow last year, my street was plowed after the first two inches fell, and it didn't see another plow for four days.
With GPS, the coordinating agency can figure out where the plows missed without falling victim to the squeaky wheel syndrome.
As for the Orwellian concerns, I'm inclined to poo-poo them in this instance. This is not about Big Brother snooping on my private life or anyone else's private life; its about making sure that a company spending my hard-earned tax dollars is accomplishing what I've paid for it to do.
With that in mind, the GPS unit should, IMHO, have an off switch. The operator can turn it off any time he wants; he just shouldn't get credit for plowing unless its on.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
The employer (which happens to be the state) wants to know if the employee is really doing the work (or as much of the work as) the employee claims.
I'd always heard the stories of street sweepers (I live in San Diego, live we ever see a snow plough) hanging out for most of their shift, then driving quickly to notch up the mileage at the end, but I'd figured it was overblown hype.
Then, on thanksgiving, I stopped by a local deserted target lot where a friend was working security. We were standing in the lot, talking, when a street sweeper litteraly flew by.
If you watch Formula 1 racing, you'll see the drivers, on the warm up lap, swerving from side to side as much as possible to get as much mileage (and therefore as much warming) as possible in to the tyres. Well, this guy seemed to be doing the same. About 30 miles an hour, swerving from one side to the other of the lot, rocketing down one row and then up the next.
There was nothing, whatsoever, to indicate street cleaning was actually happening: He was churning up, not cleaning away, the biggest cloud of dust I've ever seen from one of those things. The was just no way the vehicle could actually clean at those speeds.
What he was obviously doing was notching up the correct number of miles, somewhere largely deserted, before logging his vehicle back in.
Charmed as I am to pay taxes for that "service", I'd personally much rather he was tracked by GPS and actually had to do the job he's paid for. Privacy has got nothing to do with it - set the system to turn off during scheduled breaks, attach it to the vehicle not him, whatever you like. It's all about stopping people from taking advantage of jobs they know are hard to supervise and monitor.
They actually have to do the job they're paid for? My heart bleeds.
Cutting costs. The state probably wants to guard against lazy contractors, as they should. Why would the contractors object to being tracked if they weren't doing their job? Also, knowing the location of the plow would allow them to direct plows more effectively.
This sort of tracking is already done by mobile advertsing vehicles. They have a GPS installed to ensure that they are travelling their designated routes.
"Presumably plowing could be more efficient"
...Why? Because of GPS? Explain!"
"Why?
When everything is covered in snow, it can be difficult to know where the road ends and somebody's front yard begins. GPS would be helpful to the drivers in letting them know they're still plowing the road and not some poor shmuck's VW bug.
Boss: what the hell? why are all the plows parked at the strip club?
Driver: we're getting snowjobs
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Studies by private investigators in this area (Mass/RI) have shown that many of the plow operators actually complete less then 1/2 their expected route.
The previous method to determine whether things were getting done or not (checking odometers) isn't working, because the plow guys who basically do laps up and down the main street of a town with their blades up to run up the milage.
In theory, this will let the towns/cities know whether or not the guys getting paid by the hour and mile for plowing snow, are actually sitting at the donut shop.
In this case, the only other way to make this work is to pay people to go around and track the workers, which puts their lives at risk (driving in snow).
In addition, seems like hiring babysitters for the plow guys is just as bad as GPS... at least this way a GPS doesn't lie or hold a grudge if you piss off a human supervisor.
If they're doing their jobs this isn't an issue...
They want to plow their friends on city money, and eat donuts and watch TV... THAT'S the problem
How could they not think that using this inhumane technology to make sure their employers are working would make sleeping at work so dangerously inconvenient!
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
The biggest and reasonable complaint I've heard is that the system they are using is by Nextel who has poor coverage in Massachusetts. This combined with the fact that the contractors don't get paid if they can't be tracked (ie: if they go through a dead zone, which there are many) makes for a valid reason for complaint.
Sorry for the interruption, couldn't control myself there. Please carry on.
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
This isn't a union... these are outsourced jobs... outsourced mostly to small companies. My Uncle owns one of these outfits - basically, he owns 5 trucks and hires 4 drivers (plus himself).
The trucks are pretty huge - they cost well over $70,000 and require a lot of insurance and maintenence and tons of fuel.
I'd love $300/hour too. Then again, there aren't too many hours a year to use the equipment. If you plow for 250 hours in a year, and your truck costs $270/hour to own and operate and depreciate, that's not much additional income.
That's why virtually all plowboys have day jobs too. It's a crappy job. If you think it's such an incredibly high profit opportunity, then you should buy a truck and get a contract.
I read all the posts (+4 and +5) and thus far no one has mentioned this point.
everyone seems to agree that the company has the right to collect whatever info they want.
the question should be... how they USE that info?
if they micro manage every minute of every person thats going to piss everybody off and be Orwellian, if they let the good employees do there thing and realize that there are exceptions that can be made it, and micro manage the constant abusers that the way it SHOULD work.
its like in tech support... on the phone logged in.. company A (compaq) managed every button i pressed.. how many times did i hit "mute" today, was it in the green yellow or red catagory (a # that was always "dynamic") well i hated that job even though i did a good at it.. company B (IBM)only ever had three stats or metrics.. and it was eather pass or fail, as long as two of them at any given time were a pass.. you were doing a good job and managers and supervisors let you do it.
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
The origional post has bee updated in a vague way notting that this is a dispute about money and not about being monitored without explaining.
/. (and neither do plow operators is seems).
And no-one has posted the explination, and it seems that no one in the newengland area who watches the news posts to
At issue is the pay drivers recieve will be tied to the GPS system. The gps system being used was shown to have issues tracking durring really heavy storms and when more than one device is really close together (one may drop off from the monitors standpoint).
Plows work the hardest in heavy storms, and also do alot of tandum work. One plow within 2 car lengths of the other.
The dispute is about their pay. Their pay would automatically be assigned from the GPS monotoring system. There is no proceedure for plow operators to dispute the GPS data. If the GPS system goes down, the older means of recieving pay would NOT go into effect, the plow operators would go UNPAID.
That was the dispute.
As for the public safty issues, there were plenty of other private plow operators who were happy to sign a temporary contract to plow for this weekends storm (With the GPS). The public safty issue was used by current contractors to pull for public support and to pressure the administration.
From the summary:
but the dispute highlights the public safety versus employee privacy issue.
Having read the FA, I don't see privacy as the issue. It's about whether or not the GPS system is as reliable as the paper based admin for determining billing.
I don't know where privacy comes into it - they're tracking the trucks, not the contractors. Yes privacy is an issue in employment in general, but this article is not about that. I suppose you could twist any article to fit your hobby horse though.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Okay, it would be different if the plow drivers were driving their private snowplows, but while driving a $100k plow that belongs to a company, then there's no issue.
Many trucking companies have been using GPS to keep up with their vehicles for over 10 years. This helps catch when drivers go too fast, too slow, down the wrong roads, have an accident, get stuck on the side of the road, etc.
I just don't see a privacy issue here. Especially not when on the clock for tax payers.
Firstly, we aren't talking about the government tracking its own equipment. These are independent contractors who supply their own plows.
Secondly, the contract dispute was about many things -- it's a negotiation. According to this news story,
It was a negotiating position.
I rejoice that there are owls.
The simple answer to the problem, is to answer the question of who owns the trucks. If the State owns them, then there's no question that the State can track them. If the trucks are privately owned, then tracking them would require either a contract provision, or another onerous law.
The nice thing about a free market is that you can always shop for some company willing to give up their employee's privacy for the right money. And the employees are, of course, free to find an employer who respects their privacy a little more. If the State can't find any takers, then the idea fails. If the contractor can't find any employees, then the idea fails (and the contractor gets sued.)
In principle, it's a very simple problem with a very simple answer; as long as people are free to engage in commerce with who they choose. But after the lawyers get involved it becomes a question of workers rights. People would rather file a law suit than try to find find a more reasonable employer.
You mean that the state who pays for the plowing service would like to know how quickly their roads are being serviced? OMFG what is this world coming to?
These contractors have cushy jobs with near 100% job security. They have to get up early, but let's face it- there are many people who will get up and plow the main roads and then stop for coffee (on the clock) and take their time on the backroads. It wouldn't surprise me if this is a reactionary tactic to deal with complaints of laziness.
The $300 is almost certainly a 'snow emergency' rate. It's when they want to get every single driver out there. It happens once or twice a year, and generally not for very long... just long enough to get the major roads plowed. Couple of days, maybe?
The rest of the year, the wages are almost certainly between $40 and $60. At least, that's how things worked where I lived, when I was back east.
So, maybe you think that $600 for a 30 minute drive to work, two hours' work, and a 30 minute drive back sounds *wonderful*... but does it sound so nice when it's $100?
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
You're partway right about this, and perhaps the unions do deserve some amount of blame. However, the lion's share has to go to the companies and union-busting consultants, who spend enormous amounts of time and money trying to make unions look as bad as possible so that nobody will unionize.
The book Confessions of a Union Buster is a worthwhile read. You may or may not take what he says as gospel, but there is good documentation to suggest that what he says is goig on, actually is, constantly and with a great deal of malice aforethought.
Robert Reich also has some things to say about this, in various of his books. Some interesting discussion of it in Locked in the Cabinet.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
The people running these groups have never in fact tried to drive heavy-duty trucks in snow. They don't *care* about skill levels. The trucks are owned by the operators, driven by the operators, and insured by the operators. People constantly complain about plowing no matter how well it is done, so complaints (except perhaps by people in authority) aren't worth noting.
It doesn't matter if a job requires skill, if the people who are hiring don't KNOW (or care) that it does.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
It appears that the plow operators, despite having "reached a temporary comprimise" have actually organized some sort of "blue-flue"-esque walk-out/strike without "technically" going on a walk-out/strike. Let me explain:
1) The roads are not getting plowed for shit today. Trust me, I've been driving them.
2) The only plows I <i>have</i> seen today have been in long trains (6 or more plows) driving slowly head-to-tail, plowing only the <i>shoulders</i> of highways and not plowing city streets whatsoever.
3) I also passed several of these "plow-trains" just stopped on the side of the road. I've never seen so many plows out <b>not</b> plowing in my life.
Bastards. Lazy bastards. That's right. F*cking-A this pisses me off. Yeah, you can bet your ass that if they were having their positions tracked then the roads would be plowed today.
Man this has me pissed off. I should stop now.
:Wq
Not an editor command: Wq
Here are some very practical reasons for using GPS on snow plows:
1) snow plows are usually out on the roads before the snowstorm has stopped, and driving conditions are dangerous even for snow plows. If the plow is in an accident, GPS can provide tracking for emergency help.
2) Dispatch can monitor progress of all plows and see which areas are behind and can re-assign plows as needed.
3) GPS tracking data can show how recently each street has been plowed. This can be fed into a road conditions website, so if someone has to go somewhere, they can plan the safest route.
I would think that if you are going to spend money on GPS tracking you should do something useful with it instead of keeping a big brother eye on contractors just to make sure that Mr. Plow is actually out on the streets and not hanging at Moe's with the Plow King.
Ideology is for ideots.
Global Plowing System
My brother in law plows for the state of MA. He supplies his own truck, plow, fuel, registration, etc. This ain't a cheap investment.
The state pays him for his labour 6 months to a year later. They used to pay in August only, but now I think they also pay mid winter also.
It's not something you do to make money. If there's no snow, like in past years, you don't get paid and might have to sell your truck.
My brother in law sees it as extra $$ to buy that harley or other toy.
Personally, I think the state screws the plow operators, but then I don't have to supply my own computer and software when I go to work as a Sysadmin.
A lot of the guys who work for my Uncle do it because they need a little extra income to pay the bills.
Most people seem to think it makes sense. It's
company truck, so company can do it, it's state
highway, so state DOT can do it. Perfect sense.
Wouldn't it be easier and more reliable to make
employees wear GPS bracelets? If it's an issue
of getting paid, don't make them punch in codes;
trust the company to get it right. If one is
going to look up who is near something and then
radio them, why not just radio all trucks; it's
usually a common repeater channel.
I was involved in planning such a project. The
plows were going to appear on a website so
residents could see where they were. Somehow
the talk kept coming around to how to deal with
people calling in and demanding the plow come
to them.
And then there were the "stealth" plows.
First of all, since when does a speed limit matter, especially in georgia/atlanta, if it's a 65 it's a 75... by most peoples accounts, around here, that usually means a 95 in a 55...
Second of all, I'm not talking about snow plows... The vast majority of Georgia, except in the north in the mountains, it doesn't get snow more than once a year... if it does, it's never more than an inch! I've never even seen a snow plow on the hiway, even when it does snow! (there may be some in north georgia, but I don't know.) I've never seen a salt truck or anything.
I'm just telling you my experiences with people that operate these vehicles.