Employers demand the right to inspect emails. Delivery workers are subjected to detailed monitoring. A 2018 Deloitte report stated that ‘The people data revolution, predicted for years, has finally arrived.’
Employer surveillance of their staff has increased incrementally. Two factors have led to its growth. During Covid, many had to work from home and employers demanded some oversight on what exactly they were doing. The basic nature of the wage contract under capitalism is that you sell your ability to work. As this is a somewhat nebulous commodity, employers will always insist on their right for detailed control.
The second factor has been the growth in software products that assist employers monitor staff. Two US law professors, Antonio Aloisi and Valerio De Stefano, outline some of what is available:
Activetrack inspects programmes and tells bosses if an employee is unfocussed, or spending time on social media. OccupEye records when and how long someone is away from their workstation. TimeDoctor and Teramind keep track of every task conducted online. Interguard compiles a minute-by-minute-timeline that monitors all data such as web history and bandwidth utilisation and sends notifications to the managers if workers pick up anything suspicious. HubStaff and Sneek routinely take snapshots through their webcams every five minutes and circulate them to boost morale.
In 1987, six million workers in the US were watched in some kind of mediated way but by 1994 roughly one in seven US workers, or 20 million, were being electronically tracked at work.
It is not clear how far this trend has gone in Ireland. But unions should insist that employers disclose what information they collect on their staff.
If you know of cases of workplace monitoring, please get in touch with People Before Profit and your trade union. Our email is: [email protected]. And do ensure you use your private email!
