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Privacy Technology

Plow Operators Object to GPS Tracking System 293

Posted by michael from the that-name-again-is-mister-plow dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Boston Globe is reporting on a dispute between private plowing contractors and the state highway department. The state has mandated all trucks to equip with GPS enabled cellphones for tracking. The drivers have refused, just in time for a big winter storm. The latest seems to be that they have reached a compromise (no details yet), but the dispute highlights the public safety versus employee privacy issue. Presumably plowing could be more efficient and possibly save lives during storms if the trucks could be tracked.. a good thing. Or is this simply a step closer to an Orwellian society, where the State knows where we all are?" This earlier story does a much better job of detailing their grievances - apparently it's about money as much as anything, with the GPS tracking system being only a secondary issue.
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Plow Operators Object to GPS Tracking System More

Plow Operators Object to GPS Tracking System

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  • On GPS and Privacy (Score:4, Informative)

    by mandalayx ( 674042 ) * on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:07AM (#7646623) Journal
    There was a recent NPR story [npr.org] on the recent rise of GPS usage amongst company cars. Interesting stuff, and they mention a little about unions' concern as well.
  • rimshot

    seriously, i don't see how this is orwellian in the least

    • Re:sounds like a snow job (Score:5, Informative)

      by tacocat ( 527354 ) <tallison1 AT twmi DOT rr DOT com> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @06:34AM (#7646809)

      This isn't an orwellian society move. I think it's actually rather reasonable when you consider everything that they have here.

      • These GPS requirement apply to independent contractors and not to State Empoloyees.
      • GPS tracking will only be required while the contractor is actively working on a contracted obligation.
      • There is a mis-statement in the story that operating GPS telephones is going to be complicated and dangerous. If the phones are configured correctly then can provide GPS data on a Pull basis and not a Push. That is, the base operators can obtain your GPS without your intervention. This is what the GPS-911 feature is all about.
      • It's reasonable that the Employer have some means of validating that the work they are paying for is indeed getting performed. Is there a more cost effective means that you can think of?

      I've lived in a variety of areas where they have contractors for snow removal. In general it's not a very good arrangement in terms of getting the work done. And there is more than enough opportunity for the contractor to give the snow job to the State, City, County that is paying for it.

      • Re:sounds like a snow job (Score:4, Interesting)

        by anti-tech ( 724667 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @10:52AM (#7647654)
        I do not see anything wrong with be able to track an employee who says he is working. After every snowstorm, there are numerous reports of thousands of dollars being claimed by plow operators for work that was not done. One time a guy claimed 24 hrs of pay in a 24 hr time period, even though his neighbors saw him spend all day at his house. And, at up to $300 dollars per hour, as a taxpayer, I certainly want to know that joe sixpack snow plow operator is actually working. Afterall, he can make more in one good storm than many workers make in a month.
      • # There is a mis-statement in the story that operating GPS telephones is going to be complicated and dangerous. If the phones are configured correctly then can provide GPS data on a Pull basis and not a Push. That is, the base operators can obtain your GPS without your intervention. This is what the GPS-911 feature is all about.

        My company deals with these things.

        They're not phones; they're black boxes with integrated GPS receiver and phone transceiver and NO user interface. They are typically mounted un

  • Pilots need privacy too (Score:5, Funny)

    by artakka ( 114455 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:11AM (#7646633)
    I think the same applies to the pilots. It always bothers me when the radars track their airplane's position real time.
    There should be a way for them to "opt-out". A "stealth mode" button will be nice. Pilots do not need the big-brother constantly watching them.

  • This is contractual, not about privacy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:13AM (#7646637) Journal
    Privacy issue my ass.

    It's a contractual issue.

    The employer (which happens to be the state) wants to know if the employee is really doing the work (or as much of the work as) the employee claims.

    This is not about tracking where I go after work, or if I visit my mistress for an extra-martial screw.

    It's all about ensuring the state gets what it pays for, and any tracking is done exclusively during the employee's work.

    This is legal, and this is good.

    • Re:This is contractual, not about privacy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by strider_starslayer ( 730294 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:32AM (#7646679)
      Don't forget this is also about accountability. My cousin living just outside of New York was nearly hit by a plough and just barely managed to jump out of the way, the plough then took off the grill on the front of his truck and he got sprayed with rocks as the thing went screaming past; he sent the bill to the city, the city had to pay it, but he was told that the city was very upset with this because it happened all over and all the plough operators were blaming the independent plough operators, and all the independent plough operators were blaming the company plough operators- ultimately the city had to swallow the bill itself without being able to pass it on to the guilty party despite the fact that my cousin had an accurate time for when the incident happened. With GPS tracking that won't happen again, they'll simply look up who was where, determine wither or not they were actually there, and present the bill to the proper party. I can see how many people would not like this accountability, but I'm surprised that there aren't any Plough operators who are all for this- since it will let those who are good at there job shine, and keep there job while those who are lazy/sloppy will finally get there's and be fired.
      • How about this slightly different version:

        Don't forget this is also about accountability. My cousin living just outside of New York was nearly hit by a car and just barely managed to jump out of the way, the car then took off the grill on the front of his truck and he got sprayed with rocks as the thing went screaming past; he sent the bill to the insurance company, they had to pay it, but he was told that they were very upset with this because car accidents happen everywhere and car drivers were not step

        • Very poor comparison. This is about plow operators on the job doing things and accounting for the time they spent actually doign their job. No different, really, from filling out a logbook or a timesheet - except this one can't be faked. For an individual person, not using any of their employer's resources, it's a different story entirely. Your story here is a classic hit & run, happens every day.
    • What about me, I lease my own plow. How am I gonna feel when I get fired because my boss somehow "just knew" I had his daughter out at the drive-in. You heartless bastard.
      • Could there be some system where the GPS system can be turned on and off? And in order to bill time the system must be turned on for the whole billable period. That way the operator can choose to remain private and not get paid, or get paid and be held accountable.

        Of course this brings up all sorts of problems, such as "You shut your plow off for 45min while you were supposed to be billed, and a crime happened to of occured during those same 45min, you must be guilty."

        Oh well, nothing's perfect.

    • Re:This is contractual, not about privacy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Yokaze ( 70883 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @06:02AM (#7646740)
      You seem to have a very narrow understanding of the word privacy, it seems. Commonly, privacy doesn't only mean "private matter". In this context it means "the quality or state of being apart from company or observation".

      > It's a contractual issue.
      Yeah, and the contractors do not agree with the new contract terms. Case closed.

      > wants to know if the employee is really doing the work (or as much of the work as) the employee claims.

      Yes, but it offers the possibility of a different quality of control.
      Not a casual check, whether the street/highway has been plowed by the contractor, but a minuit surveillance of every move of every single plow operator at work. I can imagine that most workers would be reluctant to agree to such terms.

      • Re:This is contractual, not about privacy (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @07:09AM (#7646870)
        My supervisor has the right, if he wishes, to stand in my cubicle during the entire day and what what I do. He has the right to monitor me in other ways, if he wishes, as well. However, the instant I'm off work, he loses that power.

        When you're at work, you're on your employer's dime. If they want to watch you all the time, that's their deal. If they want to install a camera in your office, that's fine. If you don't like it, quit. I have a friend that had the camera thing done to him and he DID quit. IT was his employer's right to play Big Brother and watch him and his right to tell them to stick it up their ass and get a new job.

        Also contractors not agreeing to terms is NOT case closed. In many industries, it's not hard to find replacements.

    • Management issue (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Slashamatic ( 553801 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @06:27AM (#7646794)
      Unlike rain which usually comes down relatively evenly over an area, snow doesn't. It blows around and some areas get much more than others. Knowing where there are problems with drifting and where the ploughs are, allows the highways dept to put the two together more effectively.

      This is as much the case as the Time and Motion aspect.

    • Not to mention, the State is tracking ITS OWN DAMN PROPERTY. Orwellian indeed. What a douche.

    • Re:This is contractual, not about privacy (Score:5, Funny)

      by gnu-generation-one ( 717590 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @09:20AM (#7647189) Homepage
      It's a contractual issue.
      It's all about ensuring the state gets what it pays for, and any tracking is done exclusively during the employee's work.
      This is legal, and this is good.

      By similar reasoning, we should attach GPS trackers to each of our elected representatives, to ensure that we get what we pay for, and that they're doing the work they claim to be doing.
      • By similar reasoning, we should attach GPS trackers to each of our elected representatives, to ensure that we get what we pay for, and that they're doing the work they claim to be doing.

        GPS wouldn't interest me. Cameras and microphones, though, might.

    • The employer (which happens to be the state) wants to know if the employee is really doing the work (or as much of the work as) the employee claims.

      Agreed. Hell, even I have my work tracked and audited regularly -- not by GPS but by memos, work performed, and errors and mistakes not found.

      I don't fight it, I don't pass the blaim, though I do some CYA if the customers look hostile.

      In the case of the truck drivers, they look to be happy with the current round of finger pointing and do not want the trut

    • But... But... We might have to do our jobs now! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @11:44AM (#7647911)
      The employer (which happens to be the state) wants to know if the employee is really doing the work (or as much of the work as) the employee claims.

      I'd always heard the stories of street sweepers (I live in San Diego, live we ever see a snow plough) hanging out for most of their shift, then driving quickly to notch up the mileage at the end, but I'd figured it was overblown hype.

      Then, on thanksgiving, I stopped by a local deserted target lot where a friend was working security. We were standing in the lot, talking, when a street sweeper litteraly flew by.

      If you watch Formula 1 racing, you'll see the drivers, on the warm up lap, swerving from side to side as much as possible to get as much mileage (and therefore as much warming) as possible in to the tyres. Well, this guy seemed to be doing the same. About 30 miles an hour, swerving from one side to the other of the lot, rocketing down one row and then up the next.

      There was nothing, whatsoever, to indicate street cleaning was actually happening: He was churning up, not cleaning away, the biggest cloud of dust I've ever seen from one of those things. The was just no way the vehicle could actually clean at those speeds.

      What he was obviously doing was notching up the correct number of miles, somewhere largely deserted, before logging his vehicle back in.

      Charmed as I am to pay taxes for that "service", I'd personally much rather he was tracked by GPS and actually had to do the job he's paid for. Privacy has got nothing to do with it - set the system to turn off during scheduled breaks, attach it to the vehicle not him, whatever you like. It's all about stopping people from taking advantage of jobs they know are hard to supervise and monitor.

      They actually have to do the job they're paid for? My heart bleeds.
  • The latest seems to be that they have reached a compromise (no details yet)
    ...apparently it's about money as much as anything

    Here's an interesting story about GPS, but details aren't available yet, and it's not actually about GPS (but I've written the first half of the story submission, so I'll just click Submit anyway.)

    table of contents [compsoc.com]

  • What privacy concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jeeves99 ( 187755 ) * on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:19AM (#7646653)
    If you are being paid to plow a street, shouldn't the state be allowed to audit whether you've done the work or not? It seems that the only people who would/should be concerned here are those that are overcharging the state.

    Oftentimes I find that the claims of "big brother" or misquotes of Orwell are made by those striving to protect their illicit activities.

    • Re:What privacy concerns? (Score:4, Informative)

      by cailloux ( 173392 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @08:10AM (#7647003)
      Indeed, this issue is occuring with greater frequency today than it was 5 years ago. My company does mobile data and part of the data we send is GPS location information. Much of the union and non-union labor (this isn't just an AFL/CIO issue) who drive a vehicle with a GPS installed don't like the idea. Until they find out why they have it.

      A police department had GPSs installed in their vehicles as part of their computer dispatching system and the cops always grumbled that the chief could see where they were and that it wasn't right. Then one of the officers got shot on the job. He hit his panic button, the dispatcher (and every other cop on the city!) knew exactly where he was within 2 seconds. They got the bad guy (life in jail, what fun) and saved the one cop's life. Did they apso-positivly love GPS after that? Yeah, a lot.

      And I can tell you similiar stories from the commercial sector, too. The point is that anyone will think it's intrusive until they see why there is a direct benefit to themselves as part of this system.

      Consider this -- there are members of the Amateur Radio community that get excited by the prospect of sharing their position information on the internet. They can see a benefit.

      Once you get beyond the "you're trying to screw me over" arguement, things get better and you just live with it. (As an aside, most union contracts specify that the company will dictate what equipment the employee will use, so there's not much to grieve about when you're driving a truck with a GPS in it).
    • I oftentimes find that people like you don't spend time thinking about weither or not it's a good thing that they do what they are doing. "It's orwellian is an excuse!" is what you say, only to find 50 years later you're in a slave labor, er, reeducation camp.

      Giving them GPS will do 2 things; it'll complicate a already relativally simple job, and it'll allow the state legislature to nitpick where they don't need to be nitpicking. Whenever someone says "it'll save money" when talking about someone else

  • Privacy is a non-issue (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lewp ( 95638 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:22AM (#7646660) Journal
    They're being paid by the hour (and quite well, $42-$300 according to the article) and the government wants to make sure they're actually working while they're getting paid.

    While I'm working I have a cell phone and two-way pager strapped to my hip at all times. It's my employer's business where I am when I should be working. I get my privacy back when I quit for the day and take those appliances off.

    Work is not time to run the kids to school, run errands, or do anything besides work.

    Of course this is hypocrisy on my part. I'm at work right now wasting time on Slashdot. That said, plow operators have seasonal jobs. If any of them wants to give up their $300/hr gig (several times what I currently make per hour), I'll gladly trade with them, work my ass off for a few months, and then screw around for the rest of the year.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • They're being paid by the hour (and quite well, $42-$300 according to the article) and the government wants to make sure they're actually working while they're getting paid.

      And how does this make sure they're doing the work? All it does is make sure they're driving around.

      Dinivin
    • And to think I paid $100,000 and 8 years to get a scientific computing degree, and be unemployed.

      I'll scab those bitches, and plow for 40$ an hour.
  • Neither article mentions boo about safety or privacy.

    As already pointed out, this is entirely about an attempt to control cost, providing the contractors a tool to measure miles.

    Given the task of monitoring the routes covered by a thousand contractors' trucks it sounds like a decent solution too.

    Yes I live in boston, and we're about to get hammered by a predicted 16"+ of snow. Oh joy

  • It's not tracking the people... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:25AM (#7646667) Homepage
    It's tracking the plows. The government may not have the right to track where people go, but surely it has a right to track where government property goes.

    This is nothing more than employees getting irate about losing their unofficial extended coffee breaks.

  • Getting tired of this? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Hackie_Chan ( 678203 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:25AM (#7646669)
    Or is this simply a step closer to an Orwellian society, where the State knows where we all are?

    Am I the only one that's getting tired of these comments? What Slashdotters need to do is to seperate fiction from facts and weed out the conspiracies. Preaching death of the world we know it is fun and all, but every little thing in the news isn't a sign of it. Calm down, guys. Okay?

  • Trust me, this is a good thing! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by twoslice ( 457793 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:28AM (#7646673)
    Up in Canada we know a thing or two about snow. Hey we do all live in igloos up here, don't you know ;)

    The problem is we sub-contracted most of the snow removal jobs to the lowest bidder. Yup you guessed it, the lowest bidder was Jeff and Ackbar's shovel your driveway/interstate business.

    A few winters ago, I was driving through a major snowstorm with about 8-10 inches of snow on the highway. I drove for over 150 kilometers and saw only one snowplow. And guess what he was doing?

    He was parked on the side of the road drinking a coffee and taking a really long break. How do I know this? That was the funniest part, the snow was just as deep infront of him as it was behind him. He must have been sitting there quite awhile.

  • ... for me to realise y'all meant snow-ploughs. Haven't seen one for over a decade, and initially thought there was some farmer ploughing his neighbours fields without permission...

    Simon
    • There are plenty of things being done for tractors and combines to allow semi-automatic or automatic operations. Fields being by definition open spaces, GPS will will easily work down to a few centimeres.

      So your mistake was quite a reasonable one!!!

      • Conventional GPS can't be accurate to a few centimetres. Even using WAAS it's still metres.
        • In the first Gulf War I was working at a place that made avionics. We produced a GPS combo unit. Our test unit went down to less than 10 cm CPE when SA was disabled. This was a standard unit for sale for commercial aviation - definitely not survey grade although the antenna/front-end was on the building roof.

          I realise that the faster equipment moves, the less accurate the position calculation is but agricultural equipment tends to move very slowly.

          Survey grade uses multiple passes to get down to a cm or

  • How difficult to use? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:45AM (#7646710) Journal
    I have a new cell phone, a freebie given to me by Verizon Wireless when I renewed my contract. I didn't even notice that it was GPS capable until it was pointed out to me be somebody else.

    Apparently, if I call 911, they know within 50 feet or so where I am, unless I disable the GPS feature.

    So, how hard could it be? Are we talking rocket science, or people bitching for the sake of bitching?
    • Is it actually GPS, or just trackable by triangulation from the base stations? There are GPS phones around but they are still relatively expensive. If it was GPS enabled, then they would know where you are down to a couple of feet.
      • Is it actually GPS, or just trackable by triangulation from the base stations? There are GPS phones around but they are still relatively expensive.

        Actually, GPS is showing up in cheaper phones now. I have a Nextel i58sr with GPS and I got it for under $150. Mind you it's not very useful GPS-- antenna is inside the back of the phone, satellite acquisition takes forever, it gives your LAT-LON location and nothing else, and it only does it when you specifically go three menus deep and select "get my GPS loca

  • Mr. Plow (Score:3, Funny)

    by Fubar411 ( 562908 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @05:45AM (#7646711)
    would never put up with this type of thing.

  • company cell (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
    If this is a cell that stays in the plow.... oh too fucking bad. It's a job. Your boss wants to make sure you're doing it. Get over it.

    It would be a different issue if the plow drivers had to have GPS installed on their personal cell phones but this is probably not the case.

    You'd think in a world where unemployement is such a problem people wouldn't bitch and whine over the trivials like this. I'm mean you're on the job. Your location is not private anyways [because you're supposed to follow a route]
  • Outfit the trucks with GPS equipment that the driver can turn off when he's done working?

    I mean, sure when the driver is off of the clock what he does is his own business. But when he is on the clock, getting paid the money of the taxpayers, it is not unreasonable to expect him to account for all of that time. Is he really working, or is he "visiting" with his girlfriend?

    LK

    • Outfit the trucks with GPS equipment that the driver can turn off when he's done working?

      The linked articles don't state that, but in fact, that's how it works.

      Dial in to "punch the clock" as on duty. Dial again to "punch the clock" to go off duty. Leave it sitting on the dashboard for the rest of the shift. No tracking when not punched in.

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yeah, you hardly see any of the three of those sitting for long periods of time.

    • Re:If my boss did this, (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Pedersen ( 46721 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @08:51AM (#7647105) Homepage
      And I can guarantee that I'd fire you within minutes of finding out about it. We're about to install these at work, and we have some very good reasons for doing so.
      1. During the day we get emergency calls. Now, we don't have to ask the installers where they are, we can simply call the right one and get him to the emergency service call.
      2. We have at least one installer that we know is stealing from us, but due to lack of tracking in every aspect of the business, can't prove it. This will help us do just that.
      3. We have chronic issues with our installers leaving the job without collecting the money they've been told to collect. Since this will tell us when they start the car (in nearly realtime) we can go over things with them as they're pulling out of the driveway, and re-instruct them to get the damned money.
      4. We have several installers who falsify their timesheets, but we are (again) unable to prove it. They are all supposed to be at the job sites from 7AM to 3:30PM, and they tend to arrive late and leave early. This will let us catch the ones doing this (and I don't mean arrive a 7:05, leave at 3:25, I mean arrive at 8AM, and leave at 2:45).

      So, if you disabled it and were working for me, with all of those issues, I'd fire you over the phone as soon as I caught you. And I would catch you quickly, since I'd know where you're supposed to be, and that bus/taxi/whatever wouldn't be anywhere's near there.

      • Re:If my boss did this, (Score:5, Interesting)

        by circusnews ( 618726 ) <steven AT stevensantos DOT com> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @01:00PM (#7648479) Homepage
        A friend of mine owns a pest control company. His company has over 25 vehicles on the road at any time.

        A few years ago his insurance company offered him a very large break on his various insurance policies for 5 years if he could do real time tracking and could document where the vehicles were 24/7 (the savings the first year paid for the GPS systems). We installed some very nice GPS boxes. Every 7 seconds these boxes take a reading. They tell us within 25 feet where the trucks are, the trucks speed, miles and more. We could upgrade the boxes with terminals to allow for fully computerised records. We even tried using this system to track employee hours.

        You know what we found? Productivity dropped, quality dropped, employee satisfaction dropped, and revenue dropped.

        When we stared to look at why, we discovered the following:

        1. Less employee down time. That extra 5 minutes techs may take to 'wind down' after a tough call was not their, bringing down the overall quality of service. For comparison, office workers could take a walk to the watter bubbler after a tough call.
        2. More fights between the office and techs. Office staff began to think that it was their job to keep the techs going %100 of the time. This led to fights between the office staff (specificly those that answer the phones) and the techs.
        3. The techs spent less time cleaning / organizing their trucks, making the rest of their service time less efficient. Consiquently, they often did not have everything they needed to service a call.
        4. The techs spent less time doing their jobs, and more time going from site to site. Things that should have been done the first time ended up being done on an extra trip back.
        5. Techs were not willing to work as many hours as they had been. During season some of the best employees would work as many as 90 hours a week. This would include taking (company sanctioned) naps on the job from time to time. with the new system they would not take naps, and then would not be willing to work nearly as many hours.
        6. The company almost lost a number of very good people over all of this. You know what he ended up doing? He stopped using the data on a day to day basis. Paper work is again filled out by hand and time cards are back in use. The data is still collected, it is still used if a customer calls up and says "Your guy never came", but it is not used to track real time positions, its not used for day to day accounting, or anything else like that. It's just not worth it.

  • RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)

    by blankmange ( 571591 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @07:10AM (#7646875)
    According to the article, the drivers' were concerned about the accounting accuracy.

    But contractors had balked, saying the phones were not proven reliable as an accounting system used for payment.

    Nothing is mentioned about an invasion of privacy or an Orwellian allusion. Only us paranoid geeks brought this out....
    • That's what they say, but this is the standard response to any technology that affects the way laborers work. This is like the Questec system that baseball umpires don't like. I have a feeling that this system is far more accurate than the "I reckon I plowed about 200 miles last night" method that is currently used.

  • not uncommon (Score:5, Interesting)

    by btharris ( 597924 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @07:39AM (#7646940)
    i have heard other companies upgrading their trucks towards this type of management. i have discussed this topic with the driver of the commercial garbage/dumpster pick-up service at the store I work for. a couple months ago, they upgraded all of their trucks with a GPS tracking system and so-called "tattle-tale" ("tattler") boxes, which start beeping if you stay too long in one place. he also has to scan barcodes at every stop so the computer records when and where service is made.

    my first reaction was sympathy towards the driver's Orwellian fear. he said the drivers were filing many grievances with their union, but no major decision has been made as of yet.

    later I realized that these are THE COMPANY'S equipment, so it seems they should have the right to know where their eqipment is and how it's being used. if the employees have a problem with doing their job, then they should look for other employment. this is, after all, what they get paid for.

    there are, however, things that many people overlook---on both sides of the issue. the company may benefit from a precise tracking system so they can ensure their customers are receiving satisfactory service. customer satisfaction can obviously work in favor of the company in the form of more revenue. more revenue can mean more jobs or higher wages.

    the driver i've spoken with also said that the "tattle tale" boxes are only triggered if you use the parking/emergency brake instead of just the foot pedal brake. he said he used to take quick 20-minute power naps before the tracking systems were installed, since his shift is so long. taking power naps, he said, is considered much safer than driving long hours without sleep. but now, if he engages the parking brake, the buzzer goes off and he risks punishment. he said some of his co-workers try to take these power naps with only their foot on the pedal brake to keep the buzzer from going off. obviously this isn't safe, especially when you consider that these trucks could easily be hauling over 10 tons of garbage.

    my point is that the companies that install this type of equipment may not be considering all the counter-measures that their employees may take to avoid punishment, and some of these counter-measures may be unsafe. perhaps the motivation for attempting this tampering comes from ungrounded Orwellian fears or previous company-union disagreements.

    • You must not be from around here...

      there are, however, things that many people overlook---on both sides of the issue. the company may benefit from a precise tracking system so they can ensure their customers are receiving satisfactory service. customer satisfaction can obviously work in favor of the company in the form of more revenue. more revenue can mean more jobs or higher wages.

      Normally when revinues are up the 1st thing that happens is raises for the execs, more perks for said execs, some more

    • Re:not uncommon (Score:3, Insightful)

      by arkanes ( 521690 )
      You know, it sounds to me like the grievance they need to be filing is that they're being asked to drive too long in a shift without time for a nap (although, unless this is long haul stuff we're talking about, I don't see why they'd need to sleep...), rather than about the tracking.
  • to have a safe "air car" system if we are to ever have such traffic in the sky. Maybe this is a step closer to that.
  • The issue isn't tracking the drivers. The issue is that this is one big step towards robotic plows that don't need drivers.

    The drivers know this, and fear being replaced by machines, not being tracked.

    There is no such thing as a stealth snow-plow.
  • If the city knows where the plows are in real-time, car systems could poll the road-net and let you know where the cleared stretches are and when you about to have a close encounter with a plow or salt truck.

    Warning, there is a snowplow two feet behind you. Have a Nice Day!

    Mind you, in the future, we'll all have flying cars and we won't need plows. Right?

  • You are looking at this like it's a technology job where skill matters. A good programmer is 10 times more valuable than a bad one, a good laborer is probably 25-50% better than a bad one. No matter how good you are a plowing the street, you don't have alot of leverage in convincing them that you are worth more money than the guy waiting to take your job. That's why they have unions, for better or worse.
  • If the plows are owned by the state -not by the plow drivers- then I have no problem with the state putting GPS receivers in them. It's their property, after all; they could paint them bright pink and install loudspeakers on them that blare Yankee Doodle at max volume on repeat while the plows are running for all I care.

    If, on the other hand, the plows are private vehicles, then we have a serious privacy issue here.

  • GPS is excessive (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ediron2 ( 246908 ) * on Saturday December 06, 2003 @10:01AM (#7647378) Journal
    Let me put things into perspective, since everyone seems to think this is an acceptable use of technology.

    1 - Anyone who has wrangled with telecommute issues knows that bosses have a massive problem wrapping their brain around 'how can I tell if they're working if I can't count butts-in-chairs'? Yet previous threads show most slashdotters feel there are better ways to manage employees.

    Likewise, even snowplowing has lots of performance metrics: verifiable complaints sounds like a start. Or spot checks (by whoever)

    2 - If we start tracking miles, someone will get efficiency-expert on us and start comparing plow operators. The one with the most miles wins. Which means an operator that uses finesse to plow full-width and not leave berms of concrete-hard snow at driveways and around cars will rank below someone running full-speed and sloppy. For us, this is like paying a coder by lines of code (where verbose and poorly-refactored code wins!) or paying a researcher by the page-of-lab-results. It rewards a new flavor of cheating.

    3 - The usual way of subcontracting to private firms doesn't help. We're too soft on incompetent/fraudulent contract awardees, and lowest-bid is too compelling. I've seen bids on projects that couldn't afford to cover maintenance/gas costs on the involved equipment if done right, let alone pay for staff. Yet they're the lowest bidder. Go back to my verifiable complaints suggestion, and add in some teeth to the contract. Ban a contractor for life for the first whiff of fraud. Backcharge them for any work you have to redo. Make it easy to void contracts if the job isn't done to standards. The rest of us have to operate to ISO standards, so can they.

    Next, let's go to work on the 'I wear a pager' mindset. I don't wear a pager. I moved from job to job until I found a firm that doesn't obsess at this level. Now, I don't wear a pager, I have very flexible hours, I live in a low-cost region (so I am saving money like crazy), and I really enjoy the job. My job has very rigorous quality standards, though. That's what matters. How or when I do the work is not an issue. In fact, my current boss, when he calls, starts every conversation with 'Good time/ Bad time?', meaning I can break the call off without explanation. I realize that a paycheck is more important than the perks I've mentioned, and a pager is a minor compromise. But the boss doesn't own me. Not even for 8 hours a day. And just like the ill-informed butts-in-seats metric, I take notes on any abuse of my minimum standards for how I like to be treated. Then I update my resume. Then I move on.

    Funny thing is, I'm making twice what I did when the boss was a control-freak.

    So...

    Make the drivers be in communication (cellphone, radio, or data-link like UPS/Fedex tracking systems use), use it to give them a prioritized list of targets. Make them report back 'done' status. Enforce a code of honor/ethics. Have stiff penalties for lying. If a GPS goes into the truck, make it be there for crisis/safety needs, or only to be used as confirming evidence in a hearing/trial. Otherwise, let them be. Reward excellence, whether it be speed or precision or both. Use penalties to guide others to the realization that 'maybe you're just not suited to this job'. Life's too short to be obsessing about the wrong details.

    Oh... and I'm sure there's a 'tinfoil hat' or faraday cage that'd thwart GPS reception, and that word will get around once detected. That tactic used to work when I didn't want to receive pager signals...

  • ...but I don't see putting a tracking device in a plow truck as a bad thing. This would allow better coordination of the trucks. Last night, I drove 30 miles in 3 inch deep snow. I watched the other direction on the highway get plowed and plowed over several times, but my side? It seemed like no one had even bothered to touch it.

    Now you'd think after 30 miles at least one township would stop and say "Sh*t, we never did plow the southbound lane on Route 8!"

    I could see if they where trying to track people a
  • Somebody call the waaaaambulance for the poor, well paid snow plow operators.

    If they are on the job, their employer, in this case the state, has every right to know where they are and what they are doing. They are getting paid to do a job, and they have the gaul to say it's not the states right to know if they are doing the job they are being paid for?

    What a load of crap. The only ones complaining about this are the ones that slack off and get paid for work they haven't done. I'm all for slacking, god
  • Using a GPS system to track the snow plows just makes good sense.

    Everybody who lives in an area that gets snow knows just how capricious the plowing schedule is. In the big snow last year, my street was plowed after the first two inches fell, and it didn't see another plow for four days.

    With GPS, the coordinating agency can figure out where the plows missed without falling victim to the squeaky wheel syndrome.

    As for the Orwellian concerns, I'm inclined to poo-poo them in this instance. This is not about
  • Cutting costs. The state probably wants to guard against lazy contractors, as they should. Why would the contractors object to being tracked if they weren't doing their job? Also, knowing the location of the plow would allow them to direct plows more effectively.

    This sort of tracking is already done by mobile advertsing vehicles. They have a GPS installed to ensure that they are travelling their designated routes.

  • boss watching me! (Score:3, Funny)

    by iamhassi ( 659463 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @12:09PM (#7648094) Journal
    My boss watching me and knowing what I'm doing while I'm on the job?!? Sounds like a serious privacy issue to me, god forbid my boss make sure I'm doing my job!

    Boss: what the hell? why are all the plows parked at the strip club?
    Driver: we're getting snowjobs

    • Re:boss watching me! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ljavelin ( 41345 )
      You said it! The company that I work for hires drivers from a contracting firm.

      The fact is that we don't know if we're being ripped off or not. The itemization of monthly services is weak at best.

      I've recommended that we put GPS tracking into the contract, but what do you know, the company that we contract with is refusing, saying that it would add "undo burden and lower reliability"!

      Funny, since my company would PAY for the equipment, and if errors are reported we'll work with the contracting firm to

  • Privacy? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Awptimus Prime ( 695459 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @02:01PM (#7648908)
    Okay, it would be different if the plow drivers were driving their private snowplows, but while driving a $100k plow that belongs to a company, then there's no issue.

    Many trucking companies have been using GPS to keep up with their vehicles for over 10 years. This helps catch when drivers go too fast, too slow, down the wrong roads, have an accident, get stuck on the side of the road, etc.

    I just don't see a privacy issue here. Especially not when on the clock for tax payers.

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