Amanda Glenn, a former program manager at the New Jersey Board of Tree Experts, alleges in court papers a colleague informed her in October 2023 about a concealed Ring camera, camouflaged with tape, positioned in the shared office space to monitor her work.
So um…
The question is, are employers allowed to monitor you while you work?
I mean, cashiers are gonna have cameras pointed at them.
Bank workers…
Casinos…
Law enforcement (body cams are pointed away, but still one can argue its privacy intrusion)
I mean, you are getting paid so is it unreasonable for an employer to monitor you?
Like some jobs already has the norm of cameras monitoring your work. So do we all get rid of camera? Or should some jobs get monitored while other don’t?
Curious 🤔
I mean, nobody like being watched, but like if you think about it, a store owner has to make sure their cashiers don’t steal.
Counterpoint: all of those jobs have workers who know they are being filmed. This was done without this woman’s consent, secretly.
IDK, this case seems really complicated. First, it’s a state agency, not a private employer. And there is a difference between a camera in a public space and a camera pointed directly at an individual in a private office. The entire point of having an office in the first place is that it provides some level of privacy. If an employer doesn’t want to give their employees any privacy, they can have them work in an open-plan office. At least in that case, the employees will naturally feel exposed in a public space and will act accordingly. But a private office? That naturally encourages people to perform behaviors they wouldn’t perform in public. You might not take a phone call from your doctor in an open plan office, but it wouldn’t be unusual to take one in a private office.
I get that plenty of other employers have cameras. But there are some very key differences between cashiers and someone working in a government office. The cashier works for a private employer, and thus constitutional protections aren’t applicable. And cashiers are literally standing in a big room interacting with the public; it’s obvious that privacy is not implied. But if you, as an employer, put someone in a space that implies they’ll have privacy, but then secretly record them? Yeah, that could fall afoul of some privacy laws.
I don’t really know if they have a case or not. But the fact that an employment attorney was likely willing to take the case on contingency suggests that the case is, at the very least, not frivolous.
Laws can vary but generally video recording is allowed in US states except in private areas like bathrooms and changing rooms. Audio recording laws vary by state laws (single party consent). In most offices it is normal to have cameras watching doors and common areas but not individual workers.
And this is where it crossed the line here. Targeting individuals… Is not going to work out for you in court.
They do by counting the money at different points in the day like shift changes and close…
I had this happen once when I worked at a shitty movie theater I misplaced 20 bucks and for the next two weeks they followed me around doing random tasks… At the time I thought they were really stupid and I mean it was… But now a long time later I know they wanted me to quit but wouldn’t fire me…
I showed them I didn’t have the money but whatever they do check is all in saying