Firms Tag Workers to Improve Efficiency 

DAVID HENCKE / The Guardian (UK) 7jun2005

[More below]

Mindfully.org note: If trade unionists are at all savvy, they will reject any form of monitoring and strap-on surveillance.  For the good of the world we ask that they fight this with all their might. Let company profits go to hell. It'll be one thing after another to cause increased profits for the few that the many workers will never get a share in.  Corporate owners have never been content with increases from previous efficiency improvements. And they never will be. With increases in spies, snitches and surveillance, life gets "better" for the bosses, but increasingly unbearable for the workers. Resist!

Workers in warehouses across Britain are being "electronically tagged" by being asked to wear small computers to cut costs and increase the efficient delivery of goods and food to supermarkets, a report revealed yesterday. New US satellite- and radio-based computer technology is turning some workplaces into "battery farms" and creating conditions similar to "prison surveillance", according to a report from Michael Blakemore, professor of geography at Durham University.

The technology, introduced six months ago, is spreading rapidly, with up to 10,000 employees using it to supply household names such as Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Boots and Marks & Spencer.

Now trade unionists want safeguards to be introduced to protect worker privacy. Under the system workers are asked to wear computers on their wrists, arms and fingers, and in some cases to put on a vest containing a computer which instructs them where to go to collect goods from warehouse shelves.

The system also allows supermarkets direct access to the individual's computer so orders can be beamed from the store. The computer can also check on whether workers are taking unauthorised breaks and work out the shortest time a worker needs to complete a job.

Academics are worried that the system could make Britain the most surveyed society in the world. The country already has the largest number of street security cameras.

Martin Dodge, a researcher at the centre for advanced spatial analysis at University College London, said: "These de vices mark the total 'disappearance of disappearance' where the employee is unable to do anything without the machine knowing or monitoring."

In his report for the GMB union, Prof Blakemore said the new technology was raising a host of ethical issues, with the danger that the computer was taking over the human rather than humans using computers.

There is also concern that the new technology might create new industrial injuries because of the need for workers to make repetitive movements with their arms and wrists, similar to repetitive strain injuries caused by overusing computers.

But the companies say the system makes the delivery of food more efficient, cuts out waste, reduces theft and can reorder goods more quickly.

One firm, Peacock Retail Group, claims workers like the system. The company, which has a modern centre in Nantgarw, south Wales, where employees have 28 wearable computers and six mounted on trucks, says the system has a positive impact on team morale. "Everybody likes the wearables because they are comfortable and easy to use. The result is the team finds it easier to do the job," it says on the company website.

A spokeswoman for Tesco last night insisted that the company was not using the technology to monitor the staff and said it was making employees' work easier and reducing the need for paper.

But at the GMB's annual conference in Newcastle yesterday one of the union's national officers, Paul Campbell, said: "We are having reports of people walking out of jobs after a few days' work, in some cases just a few hours. They are all saying that they don't like the job because they have no input. They just followed a computer's instructions."

Paul Kenny, acting general secretary, said: "The GMB is no Luddite organisation but we will not stand idly by to see our members reduced to automatons. The use of this technology needs to be redesigned to be an aid to the worker rather than making the worker its slave.

"The supermarkets that rely on just-in-time shelf-filling rather than holding buffer stocks are incredibly profitable companies. They can well afford to operate a humanised supply team."

Other monitoring devices are being developed in the US, including ones that can check on the productivity of secretaries by measuring the number of key strokes on their word processors; satellite technology is also being developed to monitor productivity in manufacturing jobs.

Two London firms are considering using satellites to direct sandwich board holders, making sure they are not shirking and moving them to areas with more people.

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/supermarkets/story/0,12784,1500851,00.html 17jun2005

Union Rejects Workplace Surveillance

Management Issues News 7jun2005

A British trade union has slammed bosses for 'dehumanizing' their staff after research revealed that a growing number of employers are using electronic tagging technology to monitor their every move in the workplace.

A report by report by Professor Michael Blakemore of Durham University for the GMB union found that a variety of wearable devices are being used in Britain's wholesale distribution industry which supplies supermarkets and shops.

Some consist of computers worn on the arm and finger computers linked to local area radio networks and to GPS systems.

Orders from shops are beamed to warehouses workers wearing these devices to tell them which goods to pick in different parts of the warehouses, for dispatch to top up the shelves. The only role for the worker is to do as the computer order requires.

The devices calculate how long it takes to go from one part of the warehouse to the other and what breaks the workers need and how long they need to go to the toilet.

In effect, the union claims, these devices to dispatch goods to supermarkets and shops have made workers the aid to the computer rather than the other way round.

"The only functions that the human do are the bits that have not yet been automated," the GMB said.

Paul Kenny, GMB Acting General Secretary said, "This technology which involves the electronic tagging of workers has been imported into Britain from the US.

"The supermarkets that rely on just in time shelf filling rather than holding buffer stocks are incredibly profitable companies. They can well afford to operate a humanized supply chain," he added.

As we reported on Management-Issues last month, U.S. employers are increasingly adopting sophisticated technology solutions in the belief that they will boost productivity and protect resources.

The 2005 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey from American Management Association (AMA) found that with one in ten videotape selected job categories and six per cent videotaping all employees.

The survey also showed that 15 per cent of U.S. employers were even prepared to videotape workers without notifying them of the practice, something that falls foul of Article 8 of the European Human Rights Act enshrining respect for private and family life and personal correspondence.

Meanwhile, "The Future Role of Trust in Work", a report by London School of Economics (LSE) academic Dr Carsten Sorensen, warned earlier this year that office workers also face the threat of increasing control, monitoring, scrutiny and micromanagement as supply chain technology developed for monitoring goods is applied to individuals and the creation of knowledge.

This is an inappropriate use of technology, Sorensen argued. Instead, organisations should be working on creating new technologies that enable group working and increased transparency in a trusted environment.

Another study led by Professor Francis Green of the University of Kent argued that 'robotic' jobs which lack scope for personal initiative lead to deepening job dissatisfaction.

For Paul Kenny, the trend is an unacceptable one.

"The GMB is no Luddite organisation but we will not stand idly by to see our members reduced to automatons," he said.

"The use of this technology needs to be redesigned to be an aide to the worker rather than making the worker its slave."

source: http://www.management-issues.com/display_page.asp?section=research&id=2208 17jun2005