UPS: Keeping Tabs on Employees Telematically?
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Ever heard of telematics? From TDU (”UPS Expands Spyware Program“):
July 17, 2008: Are new sensors appearing on your package car? UPS is expanding its use of new technology to monitor vehicles, and drivers, like never before.
The company’s new “telematics program” uses computer technology to combine data UPS gathers through GPS, the DIAD board and new sensors that are being mounted on package cars in pilot areas.
More than 200 new sensors are being mounted on select package cars to gather information on everything from vehicle speeds and oil pressure to the number of times a truck goes in reverse, what doors are open and when, the time the truck spends idling, and how and if you are wearing your seatbelt.
The article goes on to explain that while telematic information has some useful applications, like improving fuel economy and routing convenience, it also has much more dangerous potential. It gives UPS an unprecedented ability to spy on drivers as they do their jobs, which means the Union must, now more than ever, be on the lookout for abuse of this techonology.
Suddenly, the subtle changes in Article 6 of the new master agreement make a little more sense:
(8) No employee shall be discharged on a first offense if such discharge is based solely upon information received from GPS or any successor system unless he/she engages in dishonesty (defined for the purposes of this paragraph as any act or omission by an employee where he/she intends to defraud the Company). The degree of discipline dealing with off-area offenses shall not be changed because of the use of GPS.
How nice, in this Orwellian era of employee monitoring, that the UPS driver is at least (somewhat) protected for the first offense. But what is our protection after that?
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