Slashdot Mirror
The Boss Is Remotely Monitoring Blue-Collar Workers
McGruber writes "The Wall Street Journal reports on the new level of surveillance available to bosses of blue collar workers. Thanks to mobile devices and inexpensive monitoring software, managers can now know where workers are, eavesdrop on their phone calls, tell if a truck driver is wearing his seat belt and intervene if he is tailgating. 'Twenty-five years ago this was pipe dream stuff,' said Paul Sangster, CEO of JouBeh Technologies, a Canadian company that develops tracking, or 'telematics,' technology for businesses. 'Now it is commonly accepted that you are being tracked.' In the U.S., workplace tracking technology is largely unregulated, and courts have found that employees have few rights to privacy on the job. No federal statutes restrict the use of GPS by employers, nor force them to disclose whether they are using it. Only two states, Delaware and Connecticut, require employers to tell workers that their electronic communications — anything from emails to instant messages to texts — are being monitored."
If you are using hardware or services provided by your employer, your data is not private and you should have no expectations of such privacy.
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
I should hope so. I mean it's not your truck, it's your boss'. It's not your computer and desk, it belongs to your boss. Etc etc. Of course the employer has the RIGHT. Now there's the ethical dilemma - how to use this information for more than just trying to "catch people" in impropriety, how to make the workplace better rather than make big deals about an accidental swear word or comment, etc. Misuse of this technology can and will affect employee morale rather sharply. Errare humanum est. The watchers are going to have to tolerate SOME degree of slack...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Er ist gut to work in workers paradise!
I am so glad we live in a police state where we are tracked and followed everywhere, and where we have always been at war with East Asia.
Silly privacy - only good for whiny people - strong workers need no rights ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This isnt remotely surprising.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
We use software purchased from UPS to track our drivers. Their company cell phone has the UPS app, which relays data back to the server (including GPS). Of course, being on a phone and not built into the vehicle, it's dependent on the driver taking the phone with him or leaving it in the truck. However, it still managed to catch a driver "borrowing" the truck in the middle of the night to visit his girlfriend on the other side of the city, and then returning it a few hours later. He was let go the following day. The funny part is that he was one of the drivers who would always forget to take the phone or keep it charged.
Sometimes it is good to have recorders. A crash happens, lawsuits fly, but the truck's dash cam sees it was a another car doing a swoop and squat from the breakdown lane in an attempt to run the semi off the road. This is not uncommon on I-35 in Austin where there have been semis jack-knifed by people deliberately wanting to cause wrecks.
There has to be a balance somewhere. I've wondered about mandatory data expiration laws, but this would take a lot of crafting so as to actually be usable, have teeth, and not be easily weaseled out of.
Lucky I am a white-collar. So none of this applies, right?
" Only two states, Delaware and Connecticut, require employers to tell workers that their electronic communications — anything from emails to instant messages to texts — are being monitored. "
This is a GOOD thing, it means 48 states respect the RIGHTS of private citizens to control the things they own. Basically to any right thinking libertarian this means Delaware and Connecticut are just really really bad places to set up a company and should be shunned. If employees don't like being monitored, they should find companies to work for that dont monitor them. End of story.
There are a number of behaviors like tailgating and not washing your hands after using the restroom (esp in food service or medicine) that are simply not acceptable behavior. Surreptitious monitoring to catch and correct these transgressions isn't wrong in itself--it's a good thing. Might it be used as a pretext for more sinister behavior? Yes. So we will have to remain vigilant, but it was ever thus. This is no reason not to use these tools for good. Certainly there is no right to do wrong, just because we used to be able.
Where's the new part...
The increasing cumulative affect as new technologies are developed, accumulate, and interact.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I work in a job relating to airports and have come across a funny little side effect of this. As GPS trackers in company vehicles get more common, so too do employees resorting to the use of GPS-jammers. Those jammers don't just block signals to and from the vehicle in question, but also a significant area around the vehicle. When one of them drives past an airport with his jammer active, this can happen (and there are many cases beside the one in that story).
Good lord, could Bruce Springsteen have teamed up with Bruce Schneier as foretold in the Bible!?
There's only once Bruce I know of who's Bruce enough to stop this unholy duo...
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Have gnu, will travel.
So that's how he's come up with such consistent hits over a multi-decade career, so many of which connect to the hopes and fears of working Americans. Turns out he was connecting with them a little more directly and often than they though.
Lee? or Wayne?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
All this technology was available. GPS, vehicle telemetry, monitoring software, phone tapping. It was just more expensive.
Hardly a pipe dream.
In my company, the corporate phone (SGS3) or BYOD (any device) must run the AirWatch app to get any emails. Despite trying multiple times to disable the GPS manually, it automatically turns on (by policy), so Im sure the data on where I go is monitored even when Im not on company time. And no, the point in carrying a corporate phone is to be available 24x7 on call or email, so keeping it at home isnt a viable option.
I can only thank my stars that the other items I agreed to when installing Airwatch (like access to my camera to take snaps anytime, and mic) are not used (at least not to my knowledge
Cant get a screenshot, but airwatch permissions according to my app manager include
- Your personal information
- Your location
- Network communications (including bluetooth)
- Your accounts
- Hardware controls (take pictures and videos)
- Phone calls
- System tools (there are many here)
Ten to one the above comment was made during working hours.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That 'moneyed elites' had set it up using funding from the common man knowing what was going to happen, as a combination safe haven and psychology experiment.
Honestly the people in Australia seemed as much trapped as the people outside, their cage was just a little more nicely gilded.
Campbell :)
Just sayin'.
Calling electronic shackles a pipe dream? Fuck him.
Twinstiq, game news
No, it's not. It's your time to. You have agreed to use some of you time as an employee. That might giver a right to the boss to track you.
Don't start thinking that the employees aren't also using their limited time to work.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Since we pay their salary it should be our right to monitor what they are doing during work. Included reading their mails, and listen to their phone conversations and tracking their physical location via GPS.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Didn't Snake kill her?
/* No Comment */
If you worked for me your ass would be fired. While on the clock your resources are MINE. Period. Off the clock, you can do whatever you want and i could care less what/where it is, but while i'm paying you, productivity better be coming out of you.
Notice again i never said 'all your time', just while you are 'on the clock'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I work in a sawmill in Canada. All our cameras are routed to a central location and recorded. It's a great troubleshooting tool, but also a great way to make sure people are doing their jobs. If our internet connection were faster, this information would be available over the internet now. It is happening now.
I was once almost fired from a job because my employer thought I went to customer B first instead of customer A, when customer A was already really upset with our company. I forget the details as it was around 20 years ago, but when I arrived at customer A, they informed me they were cancelling the 8:00 am service call, so I went off to customer B, getting there around 8:30 or so. Boss**2 was livid and wanted to blame me for the loss of the account, even though the customer was ticked because $COMPANY had really screwed up something completely unrelated to me. Boss**2 called customer B and asked the entirely wrong question, something like "Did SG arrive at or before 8?" Customer B, who liked me, tried to "cover" for me and said yes. If they'd had some kind of GPS tracker on THEIR $100,000+ truck, it would have shown that I rolled up at Customer A on time, stayed there for about 10 minutes, then went to Customer B.
I work as a SMB consultant and we run into a fair number of small business owners really intent on managing their employees "behavior" (web browsing, emailing, occasionally down to installing and running commercial spyware).
I get why some situations (harassment of other employees, strong suspicions of financial crimes, corporate espionage, etc) may warrant this, but so often it seems like they're trying to manage behavior instead of managing the results of their employees work.
If you have an employee who is supposed to produce a given work product, wouldn't it be more effective to actually focus on the work product (quality, quantity, etc) and not on whether or not they buy stuff from Amazon during work hours?
If your employee can't produce the desired work product then you have a business-rational reason for firing them. If their work product meets the stated goals, then why do you care what else they may be doing provided it is not a detriment to the rest of the business?
At the end of the day it seems like a kind of paternalism that is focused on controlling people, not managing their work.
All this does is continue the erosion of trust employees and employers used to enjoy. It makes for oppressive working conditions. Yeah, people slack off now and then, but is really worth the morale hit this kind of garbage does?
I wouldn't work for a company that feels the need to spy on my every move. That's not the kind of relationship I'm interested in having with someone I have to deal with every workday. Not acceptable.
I would think employers would feel the same way. Do they really want employees they feel the need to babysit every minute of the day?
This is a lose-lose for both sides. Nothing good will come of continued adoption of spying on employees.
It's understandable that the employer has the attitude: "If the employee is fucking up, I want to know about it."
For example, if the company driver is tailgating, the employer wants some monitor to warn him. Basically, the goal is to not allow fuck-ups to go unacknowledged.
This, in turn, leads to an byzantine rulebook about what exactly constitutes a fuck-up. The employee learns the book, but there is a backup system in place in case some rules fail to be mechanically followed. Pretty soon, every rule which was once handled by common sense, like "don't pick your nose in front of customers" becomes another line in the rulebook and a subject of monitoring. (This trend is driven largely by the vastly increased possibilities for monitoring.) Such an employee simply stops using his/her own judgment, because there is nothing left for individual judgment to decide. You just remember the rules, and you follow them, so as to not attract negative attention from the rule-enforcement system.
I think that this is a real trend in the low-wage labor market in the US, and it's moving up the payscale. The trend has some benefits, in that some people who cannot be trusted to use good judgment can be trained to follow explicit rules. In a regimented setting like this, such people become useful employees. But I honestly can't imagine having a job like this - spending 8 hours going from assigned task to assigned task, and performing the tasks "by the rules" instead of how I see fit to perform them. Hopefully the next step in this tragic progression is that the people in such jobs will be fired and replaced by robots with modest AI. Once the rules are formulated explicitly enough, it's won't be too hard to implement them with robots. Hopefully the productivity increases of this transition will allow us to pay for the welfare of the displaced workers. At least then they could use their time doing something fulfilling, like gardening, playing with Legos, or whatever.
"Where's the new part..."
Indeed, I don't see it either. His words seem to imply that 'white collar' workers are not cattle to be monitored, while every login, posts, emails, visited webpages, documents and every single letter he types into his computer are monitored and logged by his boss.
I hit this a few years ago with trying to implement Push to Talk phones to try and eliminate the old Motorola 2 Way Brick Radios. Unfortunately the pilot project was with a group of Union workers who initially liked the new PTT phones. They liked the ability to create notification groups for broadcasts and how much lighter and easier they were to use. Then Sprint, who owned the PTT technology (Nextel) started running the "Where are the DOTs" campaign on TV. The project ended very shortly thereafter because the Union became heavily agitated and thought that management was trying to track them. Of course the technology would have allowed that but that wasn't the goal of the project was to save money and get rid of 30 Year Old technology. Unfortunately they're still using that 30+ year old tech because it gives the folks a warm and fuzzy and it doesn't track them.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
....then it is high time we made sure that the bosses have fewer rights. . . off the job!
Ah, I see. you're an idiot.
If I work for you for 8 hours, do I age 8 hours? yes? Then it's my time I exchanged with in for a service.
I can walk the fuck away anytime I want, why? becasue it's MY life and MY time to choose to do what I like.
" It is little different than if you sell me your car, its not yours anymore. This is not an opinion, its a legal fact."
no, it's completely fucking different. If it was like a car, I would give you a bottle of time, and you would hand me cash.
" This is not an opinion, its a legal fact."
when applied to the car? yes, when applied to working? no.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I agree, sometimes it is good to have recorders.
Like on an Acela train today when a passenger recorded an "off the record" conversation between the former NSA chief and reporters.
Not off the record anymore.
He works/worked for us.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If you were my boss, I'd quit. Even if I had to live on the street in a cardboard box. Anytime a "boss" says "your ass would be fired" with such glee, they're obviously a terrible "boss".
And yes, the quotes are intentional.
If an employer has the right to spy on me then I certainly have the right to spy on an employer. Notice that the equality under law for all people does not change with ownership or status of an individual. Frankly my experience has been that when employers use covert tactics that employees tend to catch on and find many ways to exact revenge. One foreman I knew, in a machine shop, was taking very expensive products and throwing them in the dumpster in an effort to bankrupt his company. He had been told that his future with the company was in doubt as his abilities and respect for others limited his potential for any promotions.
I wonder if some of these shooters that go nuts and walk in to their job site blasting away are victims of unwarranted surveillance.
It's what we're all about. These sorts of things are used to make employees work harder and harder. As they do productivity goes up, and you need fewer employees. Fire some of them, and then make the survivors work harder. Lather, rinse repeat. It's not called a race to the bottom for nothing, you know.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The Yes Men's golden-phallused employee monitoring suit may be on the horizon: http://youtu.be/Rux-4LJr9mY
There's plenty of in vehicle GPS tracking hardware that in many vehicles can get info from seat belt lock sensors and the rest. The answer is not to be a prick about it - only use it if there's a good reason to track vehicles and to make sure the drivers know about it before they go anywhere near the vehicle. The place I work for uses it for vehicle tracking in relatively remote areas and the software is around a decade old.
You are a good example of the power drunk asses that must hate it that nowadays the SLAVES are required to be paid by law.
Luckily in my business I choose where to work... and you better damn well provide a good environment and pretend like you care about my grievances or I you won't even have to fire me as I will leave on my own. Pray you never have to manage something where you can call yourself lucky you managed to hire the people you need.
Bullshit. Check your definition of slave, you are not indentured, and you are being paid a fair market wage.
If you are a manager/owner and let your people screw off you are an idiot.
If you are an employee that screws off you are a thief.
If you are customer who allows it, you are a liar. I guarantee you would not be pleased if someone you needed service from decided to bail on you because they didn't feel like working at that moment. Or you buy a product only 1/2 built; 'the guy who does that was out back smoking today, sorry'.
Anyone who purchases services ( or products ) expects to get what they paid for. Your boss has paid for your services for x amount of hours a day, which you agreed to. It is not unreasonable to expect you to provide what is being paid for. Unless you are a damned socialist or something.
Furthermore, you wouldn't be hired by me in the first place, i can tell you have a poor work ethic and think you are entitled to be paid just because you feel important and show up. You are neither. And it would be quite clear in your interview what sort of lazy thief you are.
---- Booth was a patriot ----