War Declared on Bosses using 'Omnipresent Surveillance' Tools to Quash Union

[upnorth]

Content source

https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/01/employee_tracking_nlrb/

America's labor watchdog says it intends to crack down on the growing use of technology by bosses to closely monitor and measure staff, as it is feared this software may be used to thwart efforts to organize and unionize.

In a memo published Monday, the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)'s General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said she was particularly concerned about "the potential for omnipresent surveillance and other algorithmic-management tools to interfere" with workers' rights to organize, which is protected by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Crucially, she fears these tools may prevent folks from privately and confidentially discussing and planning unionization efforts at work, which they are generally entitled to do. As such, she wants the labor watchdog to be ready to punish businesses that trample over these rights using these tools as "more and more employers take advantage" of employee-monitoring software.

Abruzzo's memo [PDF] covers not only the types of technologies she is concerned about – such as monitoring systems used by companies including Amazon to scrutinize warehouse workers – but also with how such tech is being used, namely to keep tabs on employees.

US watchdog sets sights on 'omnipresent' spying on workers

NLRB told to crack down on tech that tramples right to organize

www.theregister.com

 

[oldschool]

This kind of behavior is enabled, in part, with the help of the 'friendly' folks at:

Scirge: When your employer mandates spyware

Scirge browser extension allows employers to spy on their employees. To make matters worse, it obfuscates data transmissions.

palant.info

 

[Stenographers]

I told my boss when I interviewed for my cyber sec position, I don't want to work in a surveillance state. The second I'm asked to install spyware on a coworker's computer or catch wind of it being done I'm walking, and they knew that up front.

 

[bellgamin]

Hypothetical situation: Acme Corp. has 100 employees that do work involving use of a computer network. Lately, Acme's productivity has slowed so much that clients are complaining and some have cancelled Acme's services.

The boss's frequent walk-throughs always show all employees busily using their computers.

Question: In Acme's high-tech organization, how can the boss know which employees are doing an honest day's work and which employees (if any) are doing lots of personal stuff like personal email, web surfing, make-work, etc? More specifically, how can the boss of a labor-intensive hi-tech operation monitor employee's work quality and productivity without the use of high-tech methods?

NOTE: This is an honest question -- NO offense intended.

 

[Stopspying]

Hypothetical situation: Acme Corp. has 100 employees that do work involving use of a computer network. Lately, Acme's productivity has slowed so much that clients are complaining and some have cancelled Acme's services.

The boss's frequent walk-throughs always show all employees busily using their computers.

Question: In Acme's high-tech organization, how can the boss know which employees are doing an honest day's work and which employees (if any) are doing lots of personal stuff like personal email, web surfing, make-work, etc? More specifically, how can the boss of a labor-intensive hi-tech operation monitor employee's work quality and productivity without the use of high-tech methods?

NOTE: This is an honest question -- NO offense intended.

In short; a lot of companies will operate an Intranet and employees access to many external internet sites is blocked. Attempts to get round this are likely to be monitored, as are the connections made on the internet, monitoring whether these are to 'approved' sites. Some of this is done by human beings, the rest is done increasingly by AI. A company with 100 employees is increasingly likely to have at least a basic version of this set up operating. I'm not sure that many businesses will monitor this number of employees 'manually' today.