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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.
Lucky I am a white-collar. So none of this applies, right?
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).
> If employees don't like being monitored, they should find companies to work for that dont monitor
> them. End of story.
Then why don't you support their right to be informed of the monitoring so they can make an informed decision as to whether to continue that employment or find another job? as a libertarian myself I fully support people's right to do many things but.... I tend to look dimly on any notion that its ok to not inform people who are subject to your decisions, especially when your decision may have a bearing as to whether they would continue to choose to do business with you.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Lee? or Wayne?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
If employees don't like being monitored, they should find companies to work for that dont monitor them.
No federal statutes restrict the use of GPS by employers, nor force them to disclose whether they are using it.
This is a GOOD thing, it means 48 states respect the RIGHTS of private citizens to control the things they own.
So, wait, how does that work? How do you propose the employee find companies to work for that don't monitor them if companies are allowed to keep it a secret?
What do you do for an encore? Argue that if you don't want lead in your kids toys just don't buy toys with lead in them, while simultaneously demanding that companies can keep using lead without having to tell anyone?
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 :)
No company that makes toys with lead in them will stay in business very long. All it takes is a few dead kids and that company will be out of business.
So we get a series of fly-by-night companies that each kill a few kids and then pop up with a new logo. Well that certainly seems reasonable.
Compare that to the MILLIONS of children who die every year thanks to goverment incomptence and corruption.
Your blaming the government incompetence and corruption for not saving them, not for actually killing them outright. So if we eliminate the government, they still die.
So you just argued for a more effective government, not a reduced government. Was that your intent? Somehow I doubt it.
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.
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.
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.
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