Can you elaborate with examples or references?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/books/review-kochland-sec...

More good news is that since workplace surveillance is already heavily-limited by law in some other highly-productive developed-economy states, this shit’s all probably pointless anyway. Just one of many cases of execs going full “seeing like a state” and wanting everything down to the finest detail to be “legible” and able to sort-by on a spreadsheet, even when it’s actually just noise.

It sounds insane, but believable for the US (but that might be my bias showing, I've always heard bad things about worker's rights in the US).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council

That may not have been legal, but it was certainly happening.

(presumably someone will be along to say that this is the EU destroying businesses by not allowing them 100% power over the lives of their employees)

I noped the hell out of there without even having spent a week working for them. The fact that they even accepted those kind of jobs told me our sense of ethics was way too different, and I didn't want to contribute to that. If it were "just" web tracking, then I would be able to (barely) accept it, if a bit reluctantly. But that's more or less where I draw the line.

I still haven't found a job since then, and I'm currently barely surviving through freelance gigs. Professionally speaking, leaving that job might have been a mistake; but I still think it was the correct decision.

I know if I don't do it someone else will so it doesn't really make a difference - but at least I can retain some sense that I'm not the kind of person who does bad things, and that's worth something.

With web tracking you can at least be 'careless' in your implementation and 'accidentally' make it not work very well because most of the time nobody will ever test it properly. No way to get away with that with this "Bossware" stuff, it'll be in active use all the time.

Hope you find something better soon.

And users can normally install tracking blockers, either in browser or DNS-based (in your home's router), to at least prevent some thirdparty stuff from loading, so that's some defense against it.

Of course it's not always possible. But the chances that a user can do something against a web service tracking them are still better when compared to an employer's in-device tracking.

I completely agree with making sure things work as much as possible and look OK when stuff like that is blocked and even when JS is disabled.

Analytics can be useful and ads are a necessary evil for the prevalent web business model. Tracking is, ugh, I guess in theory acceptable with informed consent - though I've tested a couple of those "consent frameworks" that popped up after GDPR etc and even ignoring the dark UI patterns let's just say they didn't stand up well to scrutiny regarding doing what they say they do.

Nah it wasn't my intention to give that kind of impression[0]. I was just trying to add to the part I quoted from your comment (also the keywords from my first comment (not the one with the quote) were "barely" and "reluctantly").

It's not that I think it's okay, but I probably should have used the word "tolerate"[1] instead of "accept".

So basically I agree with you. I wouldn't work on something like GFW[2], or ad[3]/gambling/porn/blockchain/dating companies, or "VPN" services (in the diluted sense of the word), or Discord, or smart TVs, or software for IoT, stuff like that.

But I also know that if I want to get a remote job, I'll have to compromise somewhere.

---

[0]: Mic and cam recordings can be trivially circumvented by anyone who knows how to turn on a computer, for example, but even if I have permission/access to them, I won't touch those things unless it's to do something the end user wants to do.

[1]: There's probably a word that better captures the nuance tho. English is not my first language.

[2]: Or anything from countries who don't even try to appear like they follow the GDPR.

[3]: Where the ads are the product/service being sold. Or in other words, if a company uses adsense it's a maybe-work-for-them-but-try-to-find-something-else; if the company is adsense, it's a straight no.

I recently struggled with this. My situation was likely different given the outcome. I was able to prevail on both the sense of decency in the client and their marketing firm by explaining the PII ramifications of what they asked for, and was also able to prevail on how their customers would perceive it.

Not everyone has the luxury of clients and marketing agencies like that. I wasn’t sure whether or not I did until I tried it. I can’t know for sure until it’s needed whether I would have simply refused. I really wrestled with the idea of not doing my level best work as a technical implementer.

I found Kevin Burke’s “Ethics” to be a really great way of working [1]. He based it on an earlier piece by Kyle Kingsbury [2].

[1] https://burke.services/ethics.html

[2] https://jepsen.io/ethics

For me it's just right to reject every potential company installing bossware alone for your personal health. People burn out under constant monitoring forced to be 100% productive all day. Have a bad day? Sad for you, it lowers your numbers. Sick leave instead? "Oh what a weak person, how unreliable". People with utilizing computers to effectively slave-drive people should be held responsible for the damage they cause. They should pay for the treatment if they drive people into depressions and burnout and neither health insurances or the society.

I also outright refused to work on a project for the RIAA at one time as well.

1. WTF is anyone doing using their personal belongings for their work? Cleanly and clearly demarcating personal and professional is CYA 101, for both employee and employer.

2. WTF is the employer doing if they don't provide all necessary tooling for the job prescribed?

3. WTF are you doing working for above employer? I sympathize not everyone can do so, but the only way such bullshit will change is if enough of the workforce says "nope" and quits for greener pastures.

...this is exactly what the parent comment is talking about. People take these jobs because you need money to live and not everyone has the luxury of being able to turn down jobs with shitty conditions. Employers take advantage of this and do things like require their employees to use their personal belongings.

1. WTF is anyone doing using their personal belongings for their work? Cleanly and clearly demarcating personal and professional is CYA 101, for both employee and employer.

2. WTF is the employer doing if they don't provide all necessary tooling for the job prescribed?

Because then they don't have to spend any company money.

The real evil are companies that require you to use a phone for 2 factor authentication and assert that they have the right to examine your phone because you use it for work purposes.

(Not necessarily directed at parent, but anyone who is unsure or worried about this.)

As a small player, I'm always afraid of this. Two of my companies died because of legal stuff that was outside the economics I could front.

"remove management"

Doesnt that sound great? Cheaper, less subjective.

And sure, its cheaper to let Asia do it. They don't have the regulations. Get in-line and work for the established players!

I've worked in factories and seen the degree to which productivity is an issue. I actually lobbied for us to use the time tracking that was already available to us via our ERP, and management declined. Humans are lazy by default. We seek the highest return on our effort. Building great things (i.e. making life better) requires us to fight this instinct.

Additionally, I have seen absurd abuse of WFH/remote since COVID among co-workers. There have been instances where I truly cannot wrap my head around someone seeing it as anything but theft. I don't particularly like being monitored either, but I definitely understand the motivation for monitoring or RTO initiatives.

I don’t see how someone can read the various articles about how closely workers are monitored in warehouses these days and be this defensive about the surveillance practices. Do you work for a tech company that uses a lot of warehouses? ;)

https://natlawreview.com/article/nlrb-general-counsel-issues...

2nd paragraph of GP's link.

> Abruzzo’s memo cites things like wearable devices for warehouse workers

6th paragraph of OP article.

I don't think the commenter meant literal ankle bracelets. But I think that's a bit pointless. I don't think it's okay whether it is a literal ankle bracelet, or some BLE tag in their badge. Do you think some option is okay?

Yes, definitely. The distinction between a supervisor watching their employee vs. cameras + CV vs. using wearables to automate the watching seems completely arbitrary to me. Are you OK with a cab company monitoring its cars via GPS? Or a trucking company monitoring its loads via tracker? I am, and again, I find the distinction arbitrary. With one caveat–the employee is informed prior to employment that these tools will be used and they are a requirement of employment.

I'd be pretty weirded out by constant camera and CV monitoring too

> Are you OK with a cab company monitoring its cars via GPS? Or a trucking company monitoring its loads via tracker?

Those are (a) not monitoring a person and (b) much more coarse than "what shelf is this person standing in front of". They tell the company that the cab driver parked, not that the cab driver took exactly 3 minutes and 33 seconds in the restroom.

I suppose my biggest concern with it is that it's measuring the wrong thing. If someone's doing as much as their coworkers even though they leaned on a shelf for 5 minutes yesterday, is that really a problem?

By comparison monitoring a car with GPS has legitimate purposes that actually advance the interests of the business.

Aha! The true use case for Neuralink - bossware installed in your brain, for knowledge workers.

"They can't monitor me because I spent my morning mentor Alan the Junior at his desk" - that may be so but it won't stop them from trying, and the lag from deploying bad business intiatives to realising they're bad can be months or years in the making.

Why are you happy from taking learning process and responsibility from individuals? With regulation of sick mindset you potentially keep alive edited form of it.

Instead employees should really refuse to be part of those illegal activity and let company die naturally. This learn both sides.