(Reuters) – The US National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer said on Monday that she will seek to limit employers’ use of “intrusive” electronic monitoring using tools such as GPS and webcams because of its potential to discourage workers from unionizing.
NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo in a memo to regional staff said she plans to ask the five-member board to rule that using technology to monitor and manage workers is illegal if it would tend to interfere with their rights to advocate collectively for better working conditions.
Abruzzo said she is concerned that increasingly prevalent electronic surveillance and software used to set production quotas are preventing workers from having discussions that serve as a necessary prelude to collective action, including union campaigns.
The NLRB’s general counsel acts like a prosecutor, bringing complaints against employers before administrative judges and the board.
Abruzzo, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, said that in appropriate cases she will urge the NLRB to rule that electronic monitoring is only legal when employers can show it serves a legitimate business need.
“An employer’s right to oversee and manage its operations with new technologies is not unlimited,” she wrote.
Abruzzo said the NLRB has a responsibility to tailor the way it applies federal labor law to “changing patterns of industrial life,” including new technologies.
Various types of surveillance and management tools pose a threat to workers’ rights, Abruzzo said in the memo. That includes wearable devices used in warehouses that record workers’ conversations and track their movements, GPS used to track drivers, and “keylogging” software that records keystrokes on company computers.
Abruzzo said those tools often monitor workers during breaks and in non-work areas, which could prevent them from soliciting or distributing union literature when they are not working.
“Surveillance reaching even beyond the workplace — or the use of technology that makes employees reasonably fear such far-reaching surveillance — may prevent employees from exercising their … rights anywhere,” she wrote.
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