Work is Becoming More Like Prison As Some Workers Forced to Wear Electronic Bands
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/work-becoming-more-prison-some-workers-forced-wear-electronic-bands-track-everythingWork is Becoming More Like Prison As Some Workers Forced to Wear Electronic Bands That Track Everything They Do (Including Bathroom Breaks)
The human body, with its need for rest, nutrition and hydration, is such an inefficient tool for capitalist production. But while machines are unlikely to replace human workers anytime soon, new technologies can deftly strip workers of their humanity!
The Irish Independent reports that grocery giant TESCO has strapped electronic armbands to their warehouse workers to measure their productivity, tracking their actions so closely that management knows when they briefly pause to drink from a water fountain or take a bathroom break. These unforgivable lapses in productivity impact workers' performance score, which management then apparently uses to terrify them into working faster.
"The devices give a set amount of time for a task, such as 20 minutes to load packets of soft drinks. If they did it in 20 minutes, they would get 100pc, but would get 200pc if they were twice as fast," writes the Independent. Although TESCO denied that bathroom breaks impact productivity scores, one former staffer the Independent spoke with said he got a "surprisingly lower" score when he took a bathroom break.
"Sometimes, management would call staff to an office and tell them they had to do better if their scores were low."
= new reply since forum marked as read
But it's definitely an exceptional movie--and Newman was superb!
I got to meet him when I was volunteering for Kerry in Ohio in '04, and I almost was placed on a speakers' panel with him. Unfortunately, our missing speaker turned up and I didn't have to fill in. 
They're PAYING you, so if you are actually working, what's the problem? And who needs unions? Our corporate masters will take care of us and treat us fairly. Unions require you to pay dues and they do not do things 100% correctly all the time!
/
I used to work for both a for-profit college and an insurance company & sat near the Call Center folks.
They were monitored more closely than any group of people I've ever seen.
Every phone call is recorded; calls randomly monitored for "quality assurance." That consists of managers and lead reps listening to our calls and criticizing every. fucking. word. Because they would have done so much better (not). IOW, if you say "you should receive confirmation in xyz days" you are scored down for "tentative language." If you say the wrong number of days, you "fail" the call because you said 7-10 days instead of, say, 5-7 days, by mistake. If you ask to hold for 2 minutes while you research something, and you take 2 minutes and 1 second, you are scored down (because everybody knows the customer is timing your call and will be furious if they agreed to hold for 2 minutes, not 2 minutes and 1 second). 1 second over a certain hold time, and you "fail" the call, period.
We do get to take bathroom breaks; phones are coded for "break aways" versus "scheduled break" times versus "system issues." Also coded for "after call" time to measure how long we take to do work associated with a given call. And all that time taken away from phone availability is held against you at performance review time.
My former manager used to monitor our "after call" time religiously; anything over 60 seconds or so, and she'd be on our cases. The more we did work during the call, the freer we were to take calls immediately after. Of course, trying to key in stuff while simultaneously listening/talking to the customer meant more mistakes. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.
All this for a princely $13/hour or so 
And they still haven't figured out why they have 40+% turnover!
And they're in panic mode because their quality scores are dropping. They still haven't figured out that anybody who hasn't been able to use the job as a stepping stone to something better -- mostly people like me in our 50s-60s who fell through the employment "trap door" and are just holding out to retire -- honestly doesn't give a flying fuck. And the rest of us know with that turnover rate, we won't get fired unless we really, truly fuck up. 
And microphones, that detect the rustle of a newspaper whilst you're ensconced on the throne!!
Too much rustling after the last plop, and they'll assume you stayed on the can to read the sports page or Dear Abby! Punish The Slackers!!!
Remind me not to read your posts when I'm drinking coffee. Fortunately, I missed the keyboard. 
Good thing I didn't pull out THIS icon pair to "polish off" my post, I suppose!!!
There are cameras all over London. 
Bathroom breaks cause lower productivity scores? What? Do they want us to wear diapers to work? 
Plus all the bathrooms would be converted to changing rooms- which would probably be the least sanitary places on earth... 
Not long at all, I'm sure.
And if that company really does what the poster claimed, I don't see how he/she should get in trouble for pointing that out.
Check out # 3 on the worst list and do some research for yourself.
http://techcrunch.com/2008/12/30/netflix-adobe-google-make-best-places-to-work-list-att-ebay-radioshack-among-the-worst/
what is with the ?
on here to confront us directly regarding our claims about them.
I don't recall it ever going well for any of them. 
I'd hack the %$^%# things so everybody would be doing the work of 6 people.
