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Worker Fired For Disabling GPS App That Tracked Her 24 Hours a Day
An anonymous reader writes: Myrna Arias claims she was fired for refusing to run an app that would track her location even when she was off the clock. She is now suing Intermex Wire Transfer LLC in a Kern County Superior Court. Her claim reads in part: "After researching the app and speaking with a trainer from Xora, Plaintiff and her co-workers asked whether Intermex would be monitoring their movements while off duty. Stubits admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she installed the app on her phone. Plaintiff expressed that she had no problem with the app's GPS function during work hours, but she objected to the monitoring of her location during non-work hours and complained to Stubits that this was an invasion of her privacy. She likened the app to a prisoner's ankle bracelet and informed Stubits that his actions were illegal. Stubits replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion...."
Privacy. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The solution: leave the phone at work when you are off duty.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
If so then the company have a right to know where it is.
You're a slave, and if you're lucky, and behave, your servitude will have some modicum of treatment that is necessary to keep you fit for employment.
Welcome to the new future. Same as the old past.
So, what is good about all these chains anyway?
GPS trackers are being used ubiquitously nowadays. I do not have any problems with them, although I do not have any. They are being used for controlling people who drive for a living.
But, using them to track people off duty is a completely ludicrous. It should be banned. In Portugal, I know, the Personal Data Protection Law strictly forbids it. IMHO, the US could learn a lot from certain European laws.
sue for backpay / ot pay for the hours that where being tracked.
They should be allowed to know where their property is. She has no case.
The solution: leave the phone at work when you are off duty.
In the desk they don't give you? in the lockable drawer it doesn't have? Let me guess, when the cleaning service walks off with the phone, she's responsible for buying a new one. And if she's on call and her employer expects to be able to reach her after work hours?
1) Just because it's their equipment doesn't give them the right to infringe on someone's private life
2) Just because you can find no wrong with this behavior doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with it. It just means you're either
a) a sociopathic fuck, or...
b) an apologist for a sociopathic fuck
3) all that aside, a person objecting to someone infringing on their personal privacy doesn't bestow a right on the employer to fire them without cause
(unless they're in a Republican "right to work" state, in which case anyone not pulling in seven or eight figures a years is fucked anyway. "You're not rich, you don't have any rights")
Why in the world would you bring your work phone back home and keep it on you while it's the week-end? i'm not doing my laundry at the office, why would you bring your customers outside of the hours you're paid for?
The law may or may not be on the plaintiff's side.
Either way, the employer should be beaten with a tire iron, in my opinion.
A nice little metal box to keep your phone in is nice! ... but then why would you need a phone? For when _I_ want to call ofc!
Get a Faraday Bag. You can even charge the phone while in the bag.
It's a company issued phone. Turn it off after you "clock out" via the app. When you're ready to "clock in", turn the phone on and do so. If you need to be reached at the number of the phone during off hours, use the call forwarding services provided by every major carrier. If you get a work call that requires you to do something on the work phone, you can turn it back on and clock in.
http://www.amazon.com/Anti-tracking-Anti-spying-Signal-Blocker-Faraday/dp/B00FN88K06
They were tracking the iPhone, which they own.
Companies need to learn that slavery works totally different in 20th century:
The company should have offered her 5% less salary on the job offer and then ask if she wants to join a "voluntary data collection study" that measures employee driving behavior off-duty compared to work tasks. She could win by being part of the study a maximum of 7% on top of her salary. On top she should be proud of being part of this circle of privileged employees that push the boundaries of making work a better place. And all she had to do is install an app on her phone that collects data. During her anniversary review she would receive a 5% as part of being in the study, by just missing by few points the bracket for 7%.... but she can do better next year...
I hope one would see the sarcasm in the previous statement...
wow, such poor! very gay. much nigga!
You don't even have the money to buy your domain back. I've thought you merged with apple? Or did they only want you for your long cocks?
Losers.
It was a company issued phone. So I see no problem in it.
If it was her own device then I would not install it. But a company device. Then she can just turn it off when she is off the clock. And then get her own phone.
Is the app installed on her personal device, or was it installed on the company's personal device? Her personal device should be her personal business, broadly speaking. Her company's personal device is their business.
Finding God in a Dog
The plaintiff was working two jobs during this time (she wanted to attain health insurance at the earlier place) and the defendants maliciously called the other employer apparently within a week of when she would have gotten her health insurance benefit and got her fired there.
It's one thing to fire an employee, you can always find some fig leaf pretext to cover your ass. But using private information that you got from the employee and going out of your way to contact another employer and cause harm to the ex-employee? There's no legitimate cause for that. That's demonstrates that it wasn't just a bad employee.
Stubits replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion....
.... And?! I need closure on that anecdote!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
When did a company (an individual) get the right to track their employees, on duty or not?
I have seen this kind of abuse before. When I had a company phone and I knew my boss was tracking me I used airplane mode quite a bit and I would also forward my company owned cell calls to my personal cell phone to sidestep the tracking of my voyeuristic "boss".
What country does this guy think he's living in that it should *EVER* be an expectation on an employee's part that their employer will, and by their own admission no less, BREAK THE FUCKING LAW?
He might be lucky to not end up facing jailtime if he admits to actually saying that.
At-will employment does not entitle an employer to violate an employee's civic rights... or at least not without all of the applicable consequences.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
She probably lied about it.
That's no justification for the employer's action. If your employee doesn't behave properly, you talk with them, maybe put them on performance plan, or maybe terminate their employment.
To talk with another employer to get her fired there is pretty unethical and evidence of douchebaggery.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
That is NOT what the article, or the civil complaint say. Even then, they don't have a right to track you 24/7. Read the complaint.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
once you did that, it's not your phone and your life any more.
they want crap apps on a phone, they have to provide the phone. otherwise, you are chattel, like cattle, only not in demand at the supermarket.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
This system lets setting up tracking schedules that can be turned on and off.... you don't have to be tracked all the time, that's uncalled for.
but it was never hers. It was company provided!
Why does the company want to know where she is? Of what use to them is this data?
First, read TFA. It's short. Then you won't look like a moron. You'll see things like the first paragraph:
A Central California woman claims she was fired after uninstalling an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone - an app that tracked her every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
You'll also find bits like this:
The app had a "clock in/out" feature which did not stop GPS monitoring, that function remained on. This is the problem about which Ms. Arias complained.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
According to the article, she was makin 87 000 per year. They wanted her on call 24/7. They were paying her $9.93 per hour. Asshole boss thinks he owns her.
One thing she could have done - turn call forwarding to a private phone on, so that the 24/7 condition is met, and then... sky's the limit.
Get a friendly taxi driver to take the phone for the night.
Put it on an RC plane and take it for a trip over the city center.
Put it in a box and attach with a magnet to your boss' car.
Borrow it for a friend who does car races (preferably illegal) to take it for a 200MPH ride.
Root the phone, get a GPS spoofing app and "send it to Antarctica".
Or just leave it in a desk drawer at work...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Unless she was being required to carry this phone all the time I don't see the issue; when you're off the clock, clock out in the app and turn the phone off. When you start work, turn it on and clock in. What's hard about that?
Almost every mobile MDM solution these days tracks device location; if not directly by asking the in-device GPS, then by IP Address or Cell Tower.
For me the bigger question is how long is that location data being retained? If they are keeping 1 minute snapshots for years, that would be unacceptable. You could divine a LOT of information about someone by analyzing their movements over a long period of time.
If the MDM is only keeping 1 location total and overwriting when a new location is provided (ie. "last known location"), I would have no problem with that.
As for not being tracked while she's not working -- it sounds like she's on call 24/7, so in a sense, she is ALWAYS working. With the advent of BYOD devices and ubiquitous WiFi, the line between office and home has become very blurry. I'm not sure I could define a coherent policy that segregate work vs home, company-wide, for any organization larger than 3 people.
I'd do it for $80K. Hell, I'd do it for $40K.
The solution is to use the clock out function, then turn the phone off or put it in a tin box. Take the phone out of the tin box or turn it on again when it's time to clock in.
Get your own smartphone to add/remove apps from.
I'd love to see a lawsuit for unpaid overtime due to on-call job requirements. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that people who work for a company 24/7 shouldn't be paid for 24/7.
but it was never hers. It was company provided!
So why didn't she just use a different phone while off duty?
BYOD! Welcome to the nu werld..
Bring your own device and tell'em to F**k-Off.
if they quibble, remind them how much they are saving by NOT buying you a phone to get the same/similiar functionality.
Remind them who you are,
and
remind them who you were on the way out..
Pretend to agree to install app, then "accidentally" store your work phone in a faraday cage in the car when not working. When they can't contact you (I'm guessing we're dealing with the sort of colossal douches here who would call after hours and expect an answer) play dumb: "oops, must have left the phone in the car/toilet/local brothel". Rinse, repeat. Sure you might still get fired eventually, but at least you've annoyed someone who deserved... nay, demanded... to be annoyed.
The End
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is only an issue if the following criteria are met 1) she was required to have phone on her 24/7 2) she was not advised the tracking would happen and be monitored in her contract If not both of those, then it's a non issue as she could have left her cell phone home, and she was aware what she was getting into- and getting paid mighty fine for it. A company has a right to track the location of its equipment at all times. It's their equipment.
Imagine the fun you could have with a fake a GPS signal - When your employer asks why you fly to the north pole every night at 3000mph you can tell him you're moonlighting for Santa.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
That's a great plan. Then she could instead be fired for not taking calls from customers 24/7 on the phone in the tin box instead. Brilliant!
Pretty easy to manage, just need to have paid attention in high school physics class.
http://www.amazon.com/FawkesBOX-iPhone-Faraday-Cage-Shield/dp/B00QQUQTV2
They were tracking the iPhone, which they own.
I understood that it was HER phone...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Tracking the iPhone is fine.
Requiring you to carry the iPhone 24/7 is fine.
The combination of the two is *NOT* fine.
It is screwing you is more than one way. Everybody that works for it need to quit and find another company to work for.
She should have bought her own phone for after hours and left the work phone at home. No employer can force you to carry their phone when you are not working.
it is possible to have two phones one for work and one for personal stuff and never the twain shall meet.
lose != loose
First paragraph from TFA
A Central California woman claims she was fired after uninstalling an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone—an app that tracked her every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Not only was it not her phone, she removed pre-installed software.
First paragraph of article
A Central California woman claims she was fired after uninstalling an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone—an app that tracked her every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Like it or not, a lot of nasty employment conditions are technically legal or hard to prove. Really the best thing is to publicize what is happening on glassdoor and similar sites. It's not going to immediately stop entry level employees, who have few better choices, from applying. But confirmed bad practices will deny the perpetrator ability to recruit top talent for positions that have the most impact on the company's future.
As of now, Intermex is described as nice working environment on Glassdoor. If I was considering an offer and read about 24/7 GPS tracking in page after page of reviews, I certainly would not join.
call forwarding?
Employers should have nothing to say about what employees do off the time clock. The sick part is that if she left the phone at work the employer would insist that they had the right to contact her to report to work suddenly if required. I've been there. The employer says i am to stay near my phone all weekend in case an emergency comes to pass. I told the employer i would be off shore fishing and would keep fishing with or without an emergency unless I was paid to stay near my phone. I never allowed employers to pull that kind of crap on me.
TFA says that, but I didn't see anything in the primary source (the formal legal paperwork) to support it.
The relevant phrasing direct from the complaint says things like:
In April 2014, Intermex asked Plaintiff and other employees to download an application ("app") called Xora to their smart phones.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I am not sure it's illegal, but I do not understand how she was "off the clock" if she was required to perform company functions. They didn't monitor refute the fact that she was monitored when she asked. So they can't really be said to have hidden it from her. She is certainly owe back pay for every hour of the day and the company should certain pay the penalty for not paying an employee's salary in a timely manner. But those are civil matters... I am not sure anything illegal was actually happening here... Now if they denied spying on her while they in fact did spy on her, then I can see how criminal laws would apply. Oh, and I am not a lawyer.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
This is all irrelevant. She consented to have the app running as a condition of her employment, and she removed it, and got fired. This is a simple cut and dried case. She agreed to the monitoring as part of her job, just like most employees agree to having company E-mail archived for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
not pre-installed. she was hired in feb. the app was installed in april. Reading is a good thing!
Root -> Xposed -> Xprivacy -> Fake location == DONE
I gave you a plus 1, underrated (for uncalled-for optimism in your) signature.
Read the actual complaint, not the Arstechnica interpretation.
Not only was it not her phone,
The official court document linked to in the summary says it was her phone.
she removed pre-installed software.
She didn't install the Xora app on her phone until two months after she started working for the company. That's not "pre-installed."
Majority of employers have it state when you get an update to the employee contract terms, you "Agree to these new terms by continuing to work here.
It's much more direct than that. We know she agreed to install the app because ... she installed the app on her phone.
I'm sorry, I don't get cell coverage here (in my bomb shelter).
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Work would not pay oncall. Required everyone to submit their mobile phone nums. They tested these numbers. So, I bent over. When I left work I wrapped that phone in alufoil. The glovebox in the car is lined with foil. So. Outside of work I can not be contacted.
Where were you?
Camping.
We called but you didn't answer!
My telco doesn't service the ski slopes
We had a all hands in systems down get in here right now call out! Where were you?
Overseas.
On your weekend???????
Yes. On my weekend.
Well, that last one was sort of true. I was out fishing... so yeah.. over.. seas...
They could not fire me. They could not contact me. They would not pay overtime. Stalemate.
I moved on asap.
Maybe in some socialist hellhole they can't. But in the Land of the Free, you'll do what ever your masters tell you to, or live the rest of your life on the streets.
Maybe "living off the land" should become an official school subject? It's not like the situation is going to improve.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Looking forward to all the libertarians and their defense of the employer, you know with the free market and mutually agreed upon contracts and all their dogma.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Invasion of privacy doesn't stick... IF this app in installed on a work device, then it should not be carried anywhere when off the clock. It should be left in the truck, locker, with all other Company provided tools. If might just backfire as abusing of company provided equipment for personal use. Carry your own phone off work just as you'd be using your own car and own cloth instead of driving around town and going on a family trip with the company's provided vehicle and wondering why the company's insurance wouldn't want to cover damages from an accident that would happen when you're not even on the clock. "There is something Rotten in the land of Denmark."
---- If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
When has America been a free country? Seriously, go read "A People's History of the United States". We've been a heck hole for ages. Hell, the reason we have a Senate is to keep the pleebs from voting themselves land (google it). We've always been a country by the wealthy & for the wealthy. We've always put property rights first and human rights second. I don't know why get so confused when we do stuff like this. We've been doing it since the country was founded...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So like uh, why didn't you read the fucking article?
This may not be the popular opinion, but the company should be able to run pretty tracking software if they want, assuming that it's their phone, and they disclose what is going on.
By the same token, a company phone can (and probably should, in most scenarios) go into the desk drawer in your office at the end of the work day.
If you're on call a lot, then things get a little fuzzier.
They basically lied to her about the function of the app by not telling her that they would be tracking her every move 24/7. When she discovered she was being tracked all the time and her creepy boss was making creepy stalker-like comments about her, she complained, then removed the app. The company would be very smart to settle out of court.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Very simple. Leave the 'Company issues iPhone' at home when you are not 'on the clock' and switch it off. QED.
bend over and I'll shove that app up your fucking ass.
Given the option to invade your privacy and your life, bosses over the world would take full advantage. A message needs to be sent. Try this shit, *bingo* you are rewarded with 5 years in prison. Try a second time, and you are locked in the soapy shower with the sodomites for a month. Awwww, look who dropped the soap again!
She should have bought her own phone for after hours and left the work phone at home.
She should have left the work phone at work, not at home.
This is in large bolt letters on their home page:
"We are everywhere that matters. Close to you. Close to your loved ones."
Creepy on so many levels. Mafia, Drug Cartel, Serial Killer, NSA Employee.
Don't you mean, "She should have left the work phone at the office"?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Some employers can require on call engineers. The question comes down to salaried or hourly. If salaried and mandentory on call, then the alternate solution is to leave the phone at work for privacy reasons and auto forward to your Google Voice number. My GV account can ring up to 3 phones at once. This can include a landline, cell, and google talk. A VOIP line with some providers can allow multi presence. This includes a VOIP phone at home, a VOIP app on a tablet, etc. I can be reashed, but I don't have to give out my personal cell number to be reached.
My GV piints to a free IP Kall number, which goes to a free VOIP account on IPPI, which has free voicemail, free missed call notifications by email, and multi presence up to 3 phones. Solves my after hours contact number while exiting employer tracking. I can call in using Goolge Voice. I can be home, at a club, or in Disnyland and the origin does not show up, only the GV number.
The truth shall set you free!
Her problem may have had a solution: leave the company-issued work at work, or turn it off after hours. Buy a private phone, use that one off duty. If you must answer phone calls off duty, forward calls from the company phone to the private one.
In Canada it has been ruled that an employee who has possession of a work computer 24/7 is entitled to some privacy away from work. The employer installed a back door program to see the screen and files on the computer. Now if the computer is at your desk a work, you have no privacy.
Nasty employment conditions probably aren't technically legal. It's just that nobody has challenged them. Remember those companies that forced users to give up their Facebook passwords, etc.? They claimed the same. Until someone challenged them.
A work contract is an agreement of two people. It has to be a "meeting of minds" (i.e. you both come to agree) and it has to be reasonable (a two-way street). You can include anything you like, you can even sign it, it can sign you have to give them your first-born, it doesn't necessarily mean it's legal, enforceable or binding. (There's a long history of legal cases that establish that standard boilerplate contract terms are binding, for instance, but stuff related to 24/7 GPS tracking etc.? That's something that needs to be questioned as to its utility and reasonableness).
Uninstalling the app from the work phone may be against the IT policies, however, but they are much simpler alternatives. Just leave the phone somewhere or turn it off when you're not using it.
Implicit in law is the right to a private family life. While you're on-call, you're pseudo-working, pseudo-private. IANAL, but I could probably argue that they don't need to track you even while on-call unless something happens that requires you to come in - and then it's just a matter of phoning and asking where you are. I could certainly argue that they have no reason for me to even have the phone on when I'm not on-call, and certainly not with any kind of tracking.
But this all boils down to one thing - you're working for a scumbag company that doesn't care about your private life. Find another job if that bothers you. Amazingly, for some people, it DOESN'T bother them. Those people scare me. I mean, honestly... come on.
If you're not on the clock, turn off the phone. It's a company provided device, so don't tamper with it, but you can shut it off.
... an app that her employer required her to run constantly on her company issued iPhone ...
There is the problem right there. She is using a company issued phone and is surprised when the company wants to keep track of where it is?
My company issues me a phone that does something similar but I never use it for this very reason. It costs me nothing to have their phone and why they think I need it is beyond me but I still have and use my own personal phone and just leave the company one at home unless I'm out on official business.
Pfft. Call forwarding or multi-sim + faraday cage for the device with GPS.
Any company that insists on tracking you 24/7 is not worth working for, imho.
The company knows that the phone is in her possession, and that she is responsible for it. That's all they need to know.
If the phone gets lost/stolen/damaged, it is her responsibility to replace it.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
This is a classic punish all for the action of one. I'd rather loose everyone I know in something like the above than have laws that punish all for the actions of one. Washington had something to say about throwing away your freedom for security.
The one thing Germany has going for it is it's privacy and data protection laws. They're being eroded as we speak by EU lobbying, dimwit politicians and clue-/careless citizens, but they still are tight enough that a German court would've given the employer a good public shafting. Without lube, after having a good laugh and concluding the verdict in 10 minutes.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Being required to answer the company phone 24/7.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Maybe we should stop paying young girls to have sex with unknown men.
Stop paying them to drop out of school, but keep dropping babies.
Maybe we should stop paying women to keep the fathers out of the children's lives.
(If Daddy moves in, the welfare stops)
Stupids? That poor man, how long has he struggled to get out from under a name like that, only to have it become his now permanent moniker.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
Employers do not have the right to track you, period. Monitor yes, but not track, even when on the clock.
Employers who want to know where their employees are at a given time within the employers locations, use a RFID pass to monitor of employees ingress and digress of areas. But knowing how fast someone is moving or if they are in the bathroom or how many minutes they spend in the copy room is beyond the service the employer is paying for with the employee. Unless documented and agreed too in contract prior to services rendered.
Oh wait, is that America?
Take the phone to your bosses house after work. Leave it in the bushes.
Pick it up in the morning.
I'm sure you could have fun with that.
You've never been on call?
Indeed, there are a number of people who post on Facebook about cop deaths, and then that "there were no riots after this guy was killed."
Well, duh. There's generally not any riots when a convenience store clerk is killed (in similar manner, I might add). Why? Who are you going to riot against? Is a cop being shot more terrible than the night-shift guy at 7-11?
Being a cop is not just a guy with a bad, blue uniform, and a job. They're a representative of government authority, with more power than the average citizen. When they start popping off citizens, they're display a form of OPPRESSION. People aren't rioting because Bob X died, they're rioting because a representative of government authority whose job is to PROTECT citizens is instead OPPRESSING and KILLING them.
If you're an 'On Call' employee they can make it a condition of your employment. How thoroughly that can be enforced depends on the state of course, YMMV.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
If racism is the factor cited by blacks as the reason that they cannot get ahead, live in urban wastelands, etc. then it stands to reason that fresh-of-the-boat blacks from Africa would face the same racism. And so it should be similarly impossible for African blacks in America to succeed as it is for African-Americans to succeed.
Since that does not appear to be the case, perhaps the "black culture" is to blame and not racism.
oh ok thank you https://www.reyonger.com/
And selling yourself into slavery is a PRIVATE agreement between a PRIVATE master and a PRIVATE slave. That doesn't make it okay, though!
Now go fuck yourself.
As long as there is mutual consent, I don't see the problem.
this list is incomplete
In the 80's a California regional airline suffered a crash when a disgruntled (are employees ever gruntled?) forced his way into the cockpit with a handgun, shot the pilots and ran the plane into a hillside near San Luis Obispo, killing all aboard. I was part of the team that recovered body pieces and identified the remains. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
Personally, I think being oncall 24/7 without comp time off is more invasive than the GPS tracking. Left my previous job after they introduced oncall rotation without any new benefit to show from it. If I get paged at 4am I am going to have a headache the next day, so don't expect me to come to office and write code. And if I can not go to swimming pool or drink beer for the whole week, a 3 day weekend next week, when I am NOT on call, would be the minimum that would compensate for that. Other than that, when I am on call I am already not free to go on with my life, so my locations are going to be pretty boring anyway.
Since a company with large number of billions in the bank thought they can get away with uncompensated oncall in my case, I would guess chances for legal success against that are slim.
This was modded to +5 but there are still only 3 reviews there? C'mon, /. .. there should be dozens of reviews by now!
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Or just turn it off. Unless they were giving her a 110% for being available off-hours, and double-time on weekends....
mark "alternatively, give it back to the boss... as a suppository"
Don't agree with everything, but Daniel Quinn's essay on education is a must read.
http://ishmael.org/Education/W...
Some excerpts...
"Of course, then, as now, everyone knew that the citizen's education was doing no such thing. It was perceived then--as now--that there was something strangely wrong with the schools. They were failing--and failing miserably--at delivering on these enticing promises. Ah well, teachers weren't being paid enough, so what could you expect? We raised teachers' salaries--again and again and again--and still the schools failed. Well, what could you expect? The schools were physically decrepit, lightless, and uninspiring. We built new ones--tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of them--and still the schools failed. Well, what could you expect? The curriculum was antiquated and irrelevant. We modernized the curriculum, did our damnedest to make it relevant--and still the schools failed. Every week--then as now--you could read about some bright new idea that would surely "fix" whatever was wrong with our schools: the open classroom, team teaching, back to basics, more homework, less homework, no homework--I couldn't begin to enumerate them all. Hundreds of these bright ideas were implemented--thousands of them were implemented--and still the schools failed.
"During the Great Depression it became urgently important to keep young people off the job market for as long as possible, and so it came to be understood that a twelfth-grade education was essential for every citizen. As before, it didn't much matter what was added to fill up the time, so long as it was marginally plausible. Let's have them learn how to analyze a poem, even if they never read another one in their whole adult life. Let's have them read a great classic novel, even if they never read another one in their whole adult life. Let's have them study world history, even if it all just goes in one ear and out the other. Let's have them study Euclidean geometry, even if two years later they couldn't prove a single theorem to save their lives. All these things and many, many more were of course justified on the basis that they would contribute to the success and rich fulfilment that these children would experience as adults. Except, of course, that it didn't. But no one wanted to know about that. No one would have dreamed of testing young people five years after graduation to find out how much of it they'd retained. No one would have dreamed of asking them how useful it had been to them in realistic terms or how much it had contributed to their success and fulfilment as humans. What would be the point of asking them to evaluate their education? What did they know about it, after all? They were just high-school graduates, not professional educators.
"At the end of the Second World War, no one knew what the economic future was going to be like. With the disappearance of the war industries, would the country fall back into the pre-war depression slump? The word began to go out that the citizen's education should really include four years of college. Everyone should go to college. As the economy continued to grow, however, this injunction began to be softened. Four years of college would sure be good for you, but it wasn't part of the citizen's education, which ultimately remained a twelfth-grade education.
"And it should be noted that our high-school graduates are reliably entry-level workers. We want them to have to grab the lowest rung on the ladder. What sense would it make to give them skills that would make it possible for them to grab the second rung or the third rung? Those are the rungs their older brothers and sisters are reaching for. And if this year's graduates were reaching for the second or third rungs, who would be doing the work at the bottom? The business people who do the hiring constantly complain that graduates know absolutely nothing, have virtually no useful skills at all. But in truth how could it be otherwise
"I will happily pay another 20 cents on a Big Mac so that the people making my food get a reasonable wage.
Then by all means, please, take some of your money and open a restaurant and pay your workers $20/hour or any other wage you feel is necessary. I'm sure that you will engender a clientele so enlightened that they will think nothing about paying $17.95 for a Big Mac because it makes them feel good that the person who flipped their burger is making a living wage. You'll have zero problems.
Or at least you could write to all the restaurants you frequent and advise them that if they do not increase the wages they pay to their employees, you will not eat there? Once all your similarly enlightened friends join you, those places will surely comply, right?
Why do "progressive" ideas always center around forcing everyone to do what progressives think is the right thing.
Ideas so good, they need to be mandatory and enforced by men with uniforms and guns.
Might be all the Koch suckers in power that oppose such ideas.
I'm not sure where ARS got that from - I couldn't see anywhere in the filing that specified ownership of the phone, and any references were to their phones or her phone.
While the Citizens United ruling moved the bar into "corporate speech" you need to understand that the decision was based on a 501(c)4 corporation, which is not at all like a business corporation. There are a lot of 501(c)4 organizations, and most are not political per se.
A 501(c)4 simply allows a group of people to pool their after-tax money (that's important, donations to a 501(c)4 are not deductible and hence are after-tax dollars) so that they can, as a group, sign contracts and hire people. They're tax exempt largely because the money donated to them has already been taxed, and they don't generally produce anything of commercial value (they don't generally sell stuff except memberships).
501(c)4 was created by the government for the purpose of providing these abilities. Groups like AARP and the NRA are 501(c)4 corporations. So are Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis Clubs, and Lions Clubs, the Miss America Organization, and the League of Women Voters.
They are by their very nature "speech" groups. The "corporate" part is a legal necessity for hiring staff and paying bills. They don't need the limited liability, etc. normally associated with what most people think of when they hear the word "corporation".
And then there's the notion that about 1M laudable charities exist in the USA, and they are almost all 501(c)3 corporations.
And when I get fired for not doing it, what do I do?
And you think they will say they fired me for that reason?
The company would be very smart to settle out of court.
I agree. They are in the wrong. My point is that she agreed to work for the pay she was getting (so has no complaint about being on call 24/7 and the company isn't in the wrong for expecting it.) Her mistake was installing the app on her phone before reading the information about the app. When I google "Xora app" today, the first result is for Xora.com which has various links shown, one for "Employee Location Tracking." When you click that link, it takes you to a page that tells you:
Kind of hard to see where every worker is on a Google Map without it tracking where you are, I'd say. Basic info about an app that someone wants you to install on your phone. It's not hidden info like the fact that the cell company tracks the phone already, it's kinda right out there.
Forward employer-provided phone to personal phone. Leave employer-provided tracking phone at the office.
Are clear example of when tracking is almost certainly going to happen and is probably a good thing for the employee. Of course, ti should be tracking to company-owned vehicle and not the employee per se.
Who cares why you didn't pick up the phone. You're a sales rep, you get paid if and only if you sell product.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
If that phone was on all the time... what *else* did he record? If I were her, I'd have a warrant for the records of what was stored on the phone, or uploaded. I mean, those things have cameras built in, and if it was tracking her all the time... AND HE KNEW WHERE SHE'D BEEN, so he was personally looking at what she was doing off-time, could he have turned on the phone and recorded her personal life?
mark
Sure, but I have my own phone and only I decide what gets installed on it.
Maybe I didn't read everything through but so far I've seen no mention of "what her job was" for this employer, was she handling "Launch Codes"?
If you ask me... it was a company iPhone.
So, Go to work and take it out of a tin foil lined box turn it on and clock in.
Leave work turn if off and put it back in the box. Perhaps with recharge battery in the
box so it is fully charged.
A key to deciding if a person is entitled to overtime is tracking and a time clock.
Her salary sounds nice but will not pay the rent in San Francisco today. If she is
on call 7x24 they need to pay her 7x24 with time and a half and double time on holidays etc.
To me she is not exempt but they are playing that game on both sides of the coin.
They owe her coin.
The application allows: See the location of every mobile worker on a Google Map. You can drill down
on an individual worker to see where they have been, the route they have driven and where they are now.
It also tracks mileage so all the miles they tracked need to be paid for.
In addition ALL the employees that are so tracked need to be compensated retroactively.
The key words in the Xora application are "work" and "mobile worker". Since they bragged that they could
and do track her any time and anyplace they trespassed on her life or they owe her and the other employes
a lot of $$.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
In a previous job where I worked as part of the IT Team, we were all sat down and absolutely told to out and out lie to employees about the phone tracking. We had specific software (Mobile Iron) that could GPS track and Map employee provided phones 24/7 and we were told to out and out lie to them and say we couldn't do it. There were arguments about this as some of the team were not comfortable about lying but we're basically shut down by our manager and told to suck it up. We all ended up agreeing and the very first time it come up as an issue I told them straight up we can track everything and gave them a printed out map. Oh and I went to work elsewhere not long afterwards (my own choice) :)
In college I designed a system which tracked my movement in 3D space and uploaded the coordinates to a MySQL database, which using another app I wrote, could reconstruct a stick figure model of myself in the area :-). I had about 1000 people actually visit the website running it regularly for fun and only one person ever ran the modelling software. My point? It's not a big deal to give off your location, I intentionally did for months and NOTHING happened to me, my work had access, my family had access, even the police had access and look, I'm still perfectly safe. If you still think it's a big deal, just write a quick app to bypass the location tracking and give it false information when you're off work, then you don't have to worry.
The phone belonged to the company. She should have left it at work when off duty.