When you worry about someone spying on you, it never would've crossed your mind that the person on the other end is your boss. Spying tools have been on the rise, especially during the pandemic when employers want to monitor their employees from home, as mentioned in Gizmodo.
Jennifer Abruzzo, the top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) aims to stop this. She claimed that close and constant surveillance and management, couldn't threaten an employee's basic ability to exercise their rights. She added that plans to protect employees to the greatest extent possible, pertaining to intrusive and abusive electronic monitoring and management practices.
Illegal Surveillance
It has been reported in the NLRB publication, that some employers record their workers' conversations. They also track their movements using wearable devices, cameras, radio-frequency identification badges, and GPS tracking devices. There are also instances where their computers with keyloggers and software take screenshots, webcam photos, and audio recordings.
It was said that this was used so employers can monitor productivity, which could lead to disciplining employees who don't finish the assigned work for the day, being penalized for taking a leave, and providing individualized directives for the day.
This somewhat violates Section 7 rights under the National Labor Relation Act, by preventing employees from working with protected activity, and keeping those activities to themselves. More importantly, it prevents them from organizing a union. Employees can face retaliation from their bosses, once the latter finds out about their plans for union activity.
With Abruzzo's proposal, employers will have to provide reasons as to why surveillance is a necessity. If so, they will have to disclose how they are monitoring employees, and what its purpose is for the business. Other than employees being able to practice their rights, they will not be suffocated by the fact that they are being watched.
How Are Employees Being Watched?
Brian Kropp, the chief of research for Gartner's HR practice, said that employers can see conversations in any company-run software. Although not directly, employers can manage it through IT or HR. They can only view messages if they have a good reason for it.
In some cases, bosses can access messages in a messaging platform run by employers, but that still depends on the software plan your boss purchased. There are certain communication suites where this is possible, according to Wirecutter.
You can be monitored through Slack. The free or standard plan only has a one-time export from slack, but the Plus plan can retain information for management once it has been approved. For the Enterprise plan, management can store and search through messages more consistently.
In Google Workspace, administrators can search for specific content. But, this is only for subscriptions with the Vault feature. The feature is available in legacy G Suite Business and G Suite Education, Google Workplace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise for Education, and Enterprise Plus.
Microsoft Teams also offers a search tool, and its coverage can reach private channels and messages in Teams. That includes emails, Skype, and more. This can only be done for the global administrator by default.
There are "bosswares" that can reach beyond just private messages. They can monitor which applications you use, which websites you visit, or if you're doing anything else aside from work. They can even take screenshots of your screen. Prior to the pandemic, 10% of surveyed companies said they used this kind of software. Since the pandemic, the number rose to 30%.
