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I think the article is quite specific and articulate about the problem: "Employers of low-income workers listen to phone calls, conduct drug tests, monitor clos

I think the article is quite specific and articulate about the problem: "Employers of low-income workers listen to phone calls, conduct drug tests, monitor closed-circuit television, and require psychometric tests as conditions of employment." This makes government surveillance (as serious as it is) feel like a distant, abstract issue.

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
listen to phone calls, conduct drug tests, monitor closed-circuit television In Wall Street these were mandatory since many years ago. Source: was tested for drugs as a part of my employment screening.
mrosett 8y ago
They also pay low wages, don't provide paid sick days, fire you if you're late, provide less training, and so on. There's a lot of bad stuff about being poor; I'm not convinced that the privacy angle adds a lot. The sentence you quoted is framed to make some of those things sound worse than they are. "Listen to phone calls" - does that just refer to call centers recording calls for training/quality purposes? And "Monitor closed-circuit television" just is another way of saying "Many low-income employees work in places with security cameras." Finally, "require psychometric tests" sounds ominous, but a) college serves as a long psychometric test and b) interviews are informal psychometric tests. The unifying thread is that employers have to invest more in supervising low-productivity workers.
- UweSchmidt 8y ago
  Well, if you have been working in a place with security cameras, then that place has gotten worse recently, privacy-wise. 10 years ago they would dig out the surveillance tapes to try and identify a burglar. Now they might automatically detect employee behaviour: That's something that affecs poor warehouse workers. A lot of that creepy stuff is moving upwards to white collar jobs, does that weaken the argument the article makes or does it just mean the problem is expanding 'upwards'?
- clairity 8y ago
  > "...employers have to invest more in supervising low-productivity workers." why do you believe these workers are low-productivity? are they unworthy of dignity and privacy as a result? why do you believe the employers are qualified supervisors? have you never had a bad manager? might it be possible that the employers have no idea how to encourage productivity, and that low productivity is induced by a coercive and surveilled work environment? so many assumptions packed into those little words...
astura 8y ago
This is just complete BS, drug tests are mostly required for mid-to-high paying jobs, not your typical low income job. I've never had to take a drug test for any of the sub $10/hour jobs I've worked, I've had to take a drug test for every single software job I've ever worked. In fact, I have an acquaintance who was talking about quitting weed the other day and how difficult is is. When I asked her what made her quit she said "I'm sick of making only $30,000 a year and any jobs that pay over $30,000 a year are going to require a drug test." Having your work phone calls monitored is hardly something to get worked up about (you're using your phone for work...do you also get mad when your supervisors monitor your work in person?) and almost certainly not specific to low income employees. CCTV is literally everywhere, nobody low income works in my building and everyone's monitored with CCTV. Big whoop. Psychometric tests are very, very uncommon and not at all specific to low income employees, in fact, I'd argue the opposite (I mean... college is basically treated as a psychometric test)
- notfromhere 8y ago
  i've never heard of any place in tech that drug tested that didn't involve getting a security clearance. no one's drug testing people making 100k+, but drug tests for low-level jobs are far, far more common than you think.
  - astura 8y ago
    Sure your cool valley startup with a flip-flop wearing CEO isn't going to require a drug test (and probably not a formal background check), but buttoned up corporate America absolutely does as well as government and most companies who does business with government. So basically most non-small-companies outside of California. Employee drug testing got popular in the early-90s, it was even the topic of a Seinfeld joke. Though I hear its becoming less common in the last few years, and some have stopped testing for marijuana. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/employment-trends/2018/05/03/labor-shortage-businesses-mellow-over-hiring-pot-smokers/573710002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/employment-tren... >There is no definitive data on how many companies conduct drug tests, though the Society for Human Resources Management found in a survey that 57 percent do so. Nor is there any recent data on how many have dropped marijuana from mandatory drug testing. >After the Drug-Free Workplace Act was enacted in 1988, amid concerns about cocaine use, drug testing spread to most large companies. All Fortune 500 companies now engage in some form of drug testing, according to Barry Sample, a senior director at Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest testing firms.

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago

listen to phone calls, conduct drug tests, monitor closed-circuit television In Wall Street these were mandatory since many years ago. Source: was tested for drugs as a part of my employment screening.

mrosett 8y ago

They also pay low wages, don't provide paid sick days, fire you if you're late, provide less training, and so on. There's a lot of bad stuff about being poor; I'm not convinced that the privacy angle adds a lot. The sentence you quoted is framed to make some of those things sound worse than they are. "Listen to phone calls" - does that just refer to call centers recording calls for training/quality purposes? And "Monitor closed-circuit television" just is another way of saying "Many low-income employees work in places with security cameras." Finally, "require psychometric tests" sounds ominous, but a) college serves as a long psychometric test and b) interviews are informal psychometric tests. The unifying thread is that employers have to invest more in supervising low-productivity workers.

UweSchmidt 8y ago
Well, if you have been working in a place with security cameras, then that place has gotten worse recently, privacy-wise. 10 years ago they would dig out the surveillance tapes to try and identify a burglar. Now they might automatically detect employee behaviour: That's something that affecs poor warehouse workers. A lot of that creepy stuff is moving upwards to white collar jobs, does that weaken the argument the article makes or does it just mean the problem is expanding 'upwards'?
clairity 8y ago
> "...employers have to invest more in supervising low-productivity workers." why do you believe these workers are low-productivity? are they unworthy of dignity and privacy as a result? why do you believe the employers are qualified supervisors? have you never had a bad manager? might it be possible that the employers have no idea how to encourage productivity, and that low productivity is induced by a coercive and surveilled work environment? so many assumptions packed into those little words...

astura 8y ago

This is just complete BS, drug tests are mostly required for mid-to-high paying jobs, not your typical low income job. I've never had to take a drug test for any of the sub $10/hour jobs I've worked, I've had to take a drug test for every single software job I've ever worked. In fact, I have an acquaintance who was talking about quitting weed the other day and how difficult is is. When I asked her what made her quit she said "I'm sick of making only $30,000 a year and any jobs that pay over $30,000 a year are going to require a drug test." Having your work phone calls monitored is hardly something to get worked up about (you're using your phone for work...do you also get mad when your supervisors monitor your work in person?) and almost certainly not specific to low income employees. CCTV is literally everywhere, nobody low income works in my building and everyone's monitored with CCTV. Big whoop. Psychometric tests are very, very uncommon and not at all specific to low income employees, in fact, I'd argue the opposite (I mean... college is basically treated as a psychometric test)

notfromhere 8y ago
i've never heard of any place in tech that drug tested that didn't involve getting a security clearance. no one's drug testing people making 100k+, but drug tests for low-level jobs are far, far more common than you think.
- astura 8y ago
  Sure your cool valley startup with a flip-flop wearing CEO isn't going to require a drug test (and probably not a formal background check), but buttoned up corporate America absolutely does as well as government and most companies who does business with government. So basically most non-small-companies outside of California. Employee drug testing got popular in the early-90s, it was even the topic of a Seinfeld joke. Though I hear its becoming less common in the last few years, and some have stopped testing for marijuana. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/employment-trends/2018/05/03/labor-shortage-businesses-mellow-over-hiring-pot-smokers/573710002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/employment-tren... >There is no definitive data on how many companies conduct drug tests, though the Society for Human Resources Management found in a survey that 57 percent do so. Nor is there any recent data on how many have dropped marijuana from mandatory drug testing. >After the Drug-Free Workplace Act was enacted in 1988, amid concerns about cocaine use, drug testing spread to most large companies. All Fortune 500 companies now engage in some form of drug testing, according to Barry Sample, a senior director at Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest testing firms.