Advantages and Disadvantages of Workplace Monitoring Essay Example

a productive and safe environment. "Lewis Maltby, president of National Work rights Institute, a nonprofit group in Princeton, New Jersey, agrees -- but he says he wishes employers would monitor electronic communications more wisely.

President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U. S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying. It is, I believe, the first time a president has authorized government agencies to violate a specific criminal prohibition and eavesdrop on Americans. " said Martin, who has been sharply critical of the administration's surveillance and detention policies.

The super-secretive NSA, which has generally been barred from domestic spying except in narrow circumstances involving foreign nationals, has monitored the e-mail, telephone calls and other communications of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people under the program, the New York Times disclosed.

The aim of the program was to rapidly monitor the phone calls and other communications of people in the United States believed to have contact with suspected associates of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups overseas, according to two former senior administration officials. Authorities, including a former NSA director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, were worried that vital information could be lost in the time it took to secure a warrant from a special surveillance court, sources said.

The information gained from monitoring and surveillance can be used to discriminate or retaliate against employees. For instance, an employer may keep track of each employee's personal calls during lunchtime to learn that a certain employee has ties to unions. Barbara A. Beck of Springfield, N. J. , reservationist for a major airline for

11 years, was fired for poor performance based on computer monitoring, consisting of "how many bookings I made every thirty minutes, the length of each call, how much time elapsed between each call, and how much time I spent away from the computer.

Beck contends that her poor productivity record was falsified because she was active in unionizing efforts. She said that most employees never get to see the electronic 'evidence. ' Employees might not even realize that they are being monitored. Although at least employees of the Federal Government must be informed that a monitoring program is in effect, there is currently no requirement that any employees know precisely when they are being monitored.

Ironically, though police must get a court order for each wire-tap they use to investigate a serious crime, employers are free to spy routinely on their employees as much as they want without the slightest suspicion of prior wrong doing. Without the workers knowing when, supervisors can plug into any of their staff's phone calls, while company computers keep track of how long employees spend with each customer and how many customers they handle each quarter hour.

Some firms even record the phone dialog. Secret monitoring is quite legal. Industrial espionage and transfer of trade secrets to competing companies also can be greatly curtailed through use of electronic monitoring. Says Miller, "Although most employers understand that treating all employees like potential criminals does not build the trust and cooperation needed to run a modern business team, many feel they have no other choice in order to keep up with their competitors.

In the early part of this century, businesses used child labor in order

to become more profitable. Today, the human rights comity does not allow child labor and upholds minimum standards of health and safety. As current technology reaches to a point where routine monitoring of employees becomes a cost-efficient procedure, there is also need for a standard by which the privacy of employees will not be compromised.

If monitoring is necessary, then there must be an accompanying standard of privacy to which employers must hold. Monitoring involves issues of exercising control over workers and data about specific workers. Employees should have rights in the sense, at least, that they should not be wholly at the mercy of their employers, as slaves would be. There are laws and some protection from occupational health hazards, on the one hand, but we allow employers to hire and fire 'at will,' on the other hand.