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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?
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 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...
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.
1) why the highway department wants them to have GPS
They want them to carry the GPS systems so they can "track their movements and record the work that they should be paid for" since they're paid "between $42 and $300 an hour."
2) why the contractors don't want to have it.
They don't want to carry them because of "the difficulty of operating the GPS phones while driving," and because if contractors don't "punch a code into the GPS phones and that if it is not done properly, the contractor won't get paid."
I, however, think the contractors don't want the GPS units because they'll no longer be able to slack off and milk the state. I mean, what do they have to hide. They are being paid by the state to do a job. Therefore, the state should have the right to track them and make sure they're doing exactly what they're being paid to do.
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is as much the case as the Time and Motion aspect.
Other aspect, if a plough driver gets into trouble (or comes across other people in trouble) - quite possible in a remote area with heavy drifting, the driver can get help.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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...
According to the article, the phones are provided to the contractors by the state. Those refusing to carry them "rejected the contract and returned the GPS phones they had been issued." The cost of equipment was never an issue, since the operators are not and were not being asked to pay for the equipment.
Three things that are important issues are, first, that the contract, as worded, would have required them to pay a higher insurance premium, but the state claims they have fixed that.
The next is the 30-minute response time, however, it's unclear if that means 30 minutes to respond and say "I'll plow" or 30 minutes to be at the assembly point. It may be the latter, sine the article states that no one has been turned away for showing up late, because the foremen knew they were just stuck in traffic (incidentally, if you are carrying the phone and are stuck in traffic on the way to the assembly point, the GPS phone can prove it for you, which could be a good thing from the plow operator's point of view).
Third is the issue of only getting paid for two hours minimum if they are called up for work. The example the article cites concerns a person who gets called in for an extra hour of work. Under the former system, that operator would be compensated for four hours of work. Under the new rules, the compensation would be only two hours. I can see where this would be a sticking point, because if it takes you more than 30 minutes from the time you are called to get to the assembly point and get the plow, and more than 30 minutes to get home again afterwards, at only two hours of compensation it's hardly worth your time to show up, yet if you don't show up you likely won't get called anymore. At four hours, that is unlikely to happen, and they probably even make a tidy profit out of it.
Now, some people might object to that, but look at it this way: you are on hourly pay and your employer calls you up on Satuday morning, when you may already have something else you'd rather do (catching up on all the sleep you didn't get during the work week, maybe) and asks if you could come in for an hour to do something really important and says they'll pay you two hours' wages to do it. However, it takes you 45 minutes to drive to work (I live in LA, where most people go that long or longer, probably also true for most other big cities) and another 45 to get back. This doesn't even take into account the time to get ready, and the lost opportunity of whatever else you had planned to do.
How interested would you be? Probably not much. You might do it, either because you had to or because it would just look bad if you didn't, but you wouldn't like it much. However, if they were putting four hours' pay on the table and you were sure you could do the extra work in no more than two, it would be a good deal for you. In the worst case - it actually takes you four hours to get the work done - well, you've still made an extra four hours' pay, which is a much bigger incentive than only two hours' pay.
The plow operators don't know which battles to choose here. They should forget the GPS thing, which is not unreasonable and could improve everyone's safety, and focus on the other points. Those matter a lot more.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.