7 ms·

> parts of the workforce had been subject to "extensive recording of details about their private lives". > "After absences such as vacations and sick leave the

• save_ferris 6y ago
  It would be pretty easy for them to convince themselves that collecting this data would be helpful for loss-prevention, keeping quotas up, whatever. It doesn’t even have to be true. Many employers take advantage of the power they have over employees. The real outrage to me is how this is definitely happening in the US and we have no way to combat it.
  • whimsicalism 6y ago
    I mean even labor laws on the book are hardly enforced in the United States.
    • NikolaeVarius 6y ago
      Please present evidence of this assertion.
      • sevencolors 6y ago
        Have you ever had a non-office job? Literally everyone that’s worked in any service or retail industry can tell you horror stories. Supervisors routinely break labor laws and abuse their position in the name of “getting shit done”. Most of it is so minor it’s not worth risking your job to complain. And when something big happens and you say something to higher ups you get brushed off. If you’re lucky your boss might pay attention and then eventually the jerk breaking the laws gets fired.
        • colejohnson66 6y ago
          Theoretically, that’s when you make an anonymous report to your state’s Labor Board or OSHA and they come investigate. But in reality, some state’s don’t care.
        • NikolaeVarius 6y ago
          I've worked in the retail, food service, concert lighting business. I've had no issues with any of them.
      • whimsicalism 6y ago
        Imagine if we put even one iota of the effort we put into fighting petty theft & drug crime into fighting employer crime. About equal amounts of money are stolen through wage theft as through petty property crime. Yet you don't see law enforcement going undercover as workers to make sure that labor laws aren't being violated. It's pretty clear that even if we have the laws on the books, the issues that affect affluent people more are going to be the ones that police prioritize. It is not uncommon to have OSHA ignored or have your boss tell you that if you try to unionize, "we'll fire all of you." Even eliminating the two-party consent requirement for workplace audio recording would do a ton for workers rights, but of course there is no desire among the professional/managerial class to do that.
• pessimizer 6y ago
  Managers just have to do what they're told or find another job. This is another example of OCD from above (like most data dragnets.) When prevention costs 10x more than the disease.
  • Silhouette 6y ago
    Managers just have to do what they're told or find another job. I'm not sure that's true, at least not in a healthy company. Still, if those are the only options and what they're told to do breaks the law, which option do you think they should choose? European countries tend to have quite strong employee protections in law, so anyone who did end up quitting over something like this might get some compensation as well.
    • bananaface 6y ago
      Quite a lot of companies function better when managers are poorly paid, obedient and basically apply a replicable system with minimal autonomy. It would suck to work there but structures like that absolutely exist & are very profitable.
      • Silhouette 6y ago
        That strategy works right up until the point where the managers are implementing a bad policy, such as one that breaks the law. At that point, someone has to be responsible, and a reasonable choice would be the most senior manager(s) who mandated that policy and perhaps the level above them for failing to adequately supervise and control them before the damage was done. The company itself is likely to have the legal liability anyway, unless perhaps there was actually criminal conduct on the part of its staff. However, surely those managers should expect at a minimum to be disciplined. Depending on the severity of the mistake, the seniority of each manager and the level of awareness of the relevant issues that they should have had, something like this might even constitute gross misconduct and be a firing matter.
• walshemj 6y ago
  The after annual leave aspect is the amazing thing.
  • GordonS 6y ago
    The after annual vacation thing is particularly bizarre - on on earth would anyone think it was appropriate to formally ask for an collect this information? This was done at scale, so many people were involved - I also don't understand how none of them decided to turn whistleblower before now.
    • colejohnson66 6y ago
      > I also don't understand how none of them decided to turn whistleblower before now. Most people don’t know their rights, or when they do, they feel powerless because even if they could win a retaliation lawsuit, those cost money and time they don’t have. It also doesn’t help that when you do file a complaint with the government, it seems like it goes into a void because they don’t investigate without enough complaints.
• jfoster 6y ago
  > I'm trying to come up with any legal, ethical reason to want to have and keep records on this. What's even the non-legal, non-ethical point of recording employees' vacation experiences? Feel like I'm missing something.
  • MereInterest 6y ago
    Illegal and unethical thought processes: * Do I think this employee has a chronic illness that will them have future absences? * Is this employee a woman expecting to have more kids, and will that cause future absences? * Is this employee visiting family out of state? If so, they might want to move to that state in the future. (Acceptable vacation locations include Disneyland, Paris, and anywhere with beaches.) Illegal and unethical response: If the answer to any of the above is "yes", then slightly rank them lower than coworkers, avoid giving them important projects, and be on the lookout for unrelated reasons to fire them.
    • jfoster 6y ago
      How could a vacation imply anything about chronic illnesses or future pregnancies? I mean, of course there's a chance something might be mentioned as an aside, but it seems very unlikely. Visiting family much more often than not will just be visiting family. The tiny possibility that it might mean something doesn't seem worth the Q&A time. Why would anyone want to fire an employee who might soon leave off their own accord?
• bserge 6y ago
  That was the norm where I worked in the UK, as well. Seemed a bit excessive. Everyone just lied.