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As someone who used to practice law in a legal aid office, can confirm the scope and difficulty of the problem. Employees, especially lower income employees, ha

As someone who used to practice law in a legal aid office, can confirm the scope and difficulty of the problem. Employees, especially lower income employees, have really limited access to the legal system; it's even worse with more vulnerable populations (immigrants, lower educated workers, etc.). Even basic stuff like employee stuff keeping their own independent hours records often doesn't happen. It's really a problem in places like farm labor.

ed_balls 8y ago
I guess the problem is US doesn't have an employment like most European countries.
- ed_balls 8y ago
  I meant employment tribunal.
Eridrus 8y ago
Is there a way tech can help in this space? Many people complain about the fact that Google has a record of where you go if you opt in to location tracking, but people should be able to extract this record to get an automated working time estimate without needing to do do anything to prepare ahead of time, if they have an Android phone and haven't disabled the tracking. I'm not sure about the completeness/time accuracy of the logged data, but maybe you could weigh in on the presumed legal validity of such an approach?
- zitterbewegung 8y ago
  Location tracking on phones is not nearly as a clean data source as it may seem. For example when you use GPS in a large city tour location can get confused . So your tracking data is rather rough.
  - Eridrus 8y ago
    When I look at the Location History Google has on me for my time at work it's pretty accurate, which is unsurprising since it is in a single fixed location and involves a fusion of not just GPS, but also Accelerometer and WiFi data. It's entirely possible that is less accurate for others, but it's a source of data that many people in this situation should already have, so you can use it for those for whom it is more accurate, and ignore it for others.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    Just try Uber in a large city... It is garbage and somehow getting worse. Even the driver's complain and are using alternative mapping apps.
- tarr11 8y ago
  Most time tracking software such as WhenIWork does this. However, it is geared towards protecting the employer from wage theft by employees in the form of late clock-in, early clock-out, etc. Eg, when an employee inflates their time worked.
  - tomjakubowski 8y ago
    that situation is called "payroll fraud", "wage theft" only applies to employers keeping wages owed to workers.
- detcader 8y ago
  Educating more women always boosts economies (see OECD), for many reasons I think
- auvrw 8y ago
  enabling communication (e.g. ops for Mastodon communities) for labor unions strikes me as a better means of addressing the basic issue --- i.e. "the man" taking advantage of the little guy, intentional or not. if time-tracking somehow solves the bare moneys/hour problem, other, perhaps worse, conditions could surface (thinking of what it's like to work in an online shop warehouse here, in particular, where time-tracking is .. not a complete "solution.") traditionally, afaik, unionization is the way out of situations where a great number of workers are disadvantaged by some policy set by a few people in the industry. this is a social [(science)?] problem, not a technological one.

ed_balls 8y ago

I guess the problem is US doesn't have an employment like most European countries.

ed_balls 8y ago
I meant employment tribunal.

Eridrus 8y ago

Is there a way tech can help in this space? Many people complain about the fact that Google has a record of where you go if you opt in to location tracking, but people should be able to extract this record to get an automated working time estimate without needing to do do anything to prepare ahead of time, if they have an Android phone and haven't disabled the tracking. I'm not sure about the completeness/time accuracy of the logged data, but maybe you could weigh in on the presumed legal validity of such an approach?

zitterbewegung 8y ago
Location tracking on phones is not nearly as a clean data source as it may seem. For example when you use GPS in a large city tour location can get confused . So your tracking data is rather rough.
- Eridrus 8y ago
  When I look at the Location History Google has on me for my time at work it's pretty accurate, which is unsurprising since it is in a single fixed location and involves a fusion of not just GPS, but also Accelerometer and WiFi data. It's entirely possible that is less accurate for others, but it's a source of data that many people in this situation should already have, so you can use it for those for whom it is more accurate, and ignore it for others.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Just try Uber in a large city... It is garbage and somehow getting worse. Even the driver's complain and are using alternative mapping apps.
tarr11 8y ago
Most time tracking software such as WhenIWork does this. However, it is geared towards protecting the employer from wage theft by employees in the form of late clock-in, early clock-out, etc. Eg, when an employee inflates their time worked.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  that situation is called "payroll fraud", "wage theft" only applies to employers keeping wages owed to workers.
detcader 8y ago
Educating more women always boosts economies (see OECD), for many reasons I think
auvrw 8y ago
enabling communication (e.g. ops for Mastodon communities) for labor unions strikes me as a better means of addressing the basic issue --- i.e. "the man" taking advantage of the little guy, intentional or not. if time-tracking somehow solves the bare moneys/hour problem, other, perhaps worse, conditions could surface (thinking of what it's like to work in an online shop warehouse here, in particular, where time-tracking is .. not a complete "solution.") traditionally, afaik, unionization is the way out of situations where a great number of workers are disadvantaged by some policy set by a few people in the industry. this is a social [(science)?] problem, not a technological one.