Whining In The Big Apple
It seems that unions are behind the latest whining campaign - especially in New York City - over biometric scanning being used to clock employees in and out of their workplace. A new system is supposed to begin tracking city employees and the unions are unhappy.
NEW YORK - Some workers are doing it at Dunkin' Donuts, Hilton hotels, even at Marine Corps bases. Employees at a growing number of businesses around the nation are starting and ending their days by pressing a hand or finger to a scanner that logs the precise time of their arrival and departure — information that is automatically reflected in payroll records…..
….."They don't even have to hire someone to harass you anymore. The machine can do it for them," said Ed Ott, executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO. "The palm print thing really grabs people as a step too far."
The International Biometric Group, a consulting firm, estimated that $635 million worth of these high-tech devices were sold last year.
Protests over using palm scanners to log employee time have been especially loud in New York City, where officials are spending $410 million to install an automated attendance tracking system that may eventually be used by 160,000 city workers.
Scores of civil servants who are members of Local 375 of the Civil Service Technical Guild rallied Tuesday against a plan to add the city medical examiner's office to the list of 17 city agencies which already have the scanners in place.
The scanners have rankled draftsmen, planners and architects in the city's Parks Department, which began using them last year.
Heaven forbid that a person drawing a government salary might actually have to be at work to get paid. In the nuclear industry, biometric scanners have been in use for more than a decade. I have to use an identity card and insert my hand into a reader every time I go on site and every time I leave. Those scans keep track of who is on site at any one time in case there is ever a need to evacuate, of course. But they can be used to check attendance as well. Those particular rules were enacted by the Federal government, incidentally. It seems more than a bit ridiculous for government employees, even those at the state or city level, to balk at the same rules that have been imposed on part of the civilian sector applying to them.
If the systems streamline payroll and ensure that workers are actually at their jobsite what is the whining really about?
Uncategorized | Gaius Thursday, 27 March , 2008
By Thomas Pfau, Thursday, 27 March , 2008 @ 9:15 am
Hey, sounds like a great idea. Can we get this installed in Congress?
By martian, Thursday, 27 March , 2008 @ 1:33 pm
"If the systems streamline payroll and ensure that workers are actually at their jobsite what is the whining really about?""
In a nutshell, that’s exactly what the whining is about. No more punching your buddy’s timecard when he slips out early or him punching yours under the same circumstances. Or, for that matter, no more "no show" jobs for political cronies or mobsters - the actual person will have to be on site. This could ruin cronyism as we know it!
By Vmaximus, Thursday, 27 March , 2008 @ 7:38 pm
Gaius,I know that you are in the power industry, I was just approached by someone from Fluor to work in their power group. Do you know anything about them? The money they offered seems to be very good.
By Gaius, Thursday, 27 March , 2008 @ 7:56 pm
Fluor has been around for a long time and has a generally good rep as far as I know.
By clifto, Friday, 28 March , 2008 @ 11:15 am
I’m not fond of leaving information that can be used against me in the future. I refuse to put a digital signature into the store computers, instead making the cashiers print the paper and then signing the paper, so that no one can produce that digital signature elsewhere and claim I endorsed something I didn’t. Biometrics leaves me with the same feeling. For legitimate purposes I’ll produce anything in my possession to prove my identity, I don’t have a problem with that; but I have a very big problem with leaving proof of my identity in the hands of others.
Somebody tell me how secure and completely unhackable are the computers that store this data.