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A Rising Number Of Businesses Are Using Technology To Monitor

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A rising number of businesses are using technology to monitor their employees ' emails, phone calls, and movements. Your employer may be watching and listening, monitoring employee privacy has become a new controversial issue in the field of business ethics (Mishra and Crampton, 1998). As long as there has been employment, employees have been monitored (Nebeker & Tatum, 1993). In recent years, however, due in part to new technology that makes it easier, there has been an explosion of electronic monitoring and surveillance in the American workplace (Botan, 1996). The case that I will be analysing is Lidl; Lidl is part of the Schwarz group, a holding organization that possesses two German discounters, Lidl and Kaufland, which are both …show more content…

The detectives ' records include details of precisely where employees had tattoos as well as information about their friends. "Her circle of friends consists mainly of drug addicts," reads one record. The detectives also had the task of identifying which employees appeared to be "incapable" or "introverted and naive". Another recorded "Wednesday, 4:45 p.m.: Although Ms N. has not accomplished much in the food and reduced wares department, she takes her break right on time. She sits together with Ms. L.; they talk about their wages, bonuses and paid overtime. Ms. N. hopes that her pay has been transferred already because she desperately needs money for this evening (reason = ?)". A Hamburg work legal advisor, Klaus Müller-Knapp, said the transcripts were "shameful to the most elevated degree" and broke laws on opportunity of expression (Bloomberg 2008) Lidls Corporate bosses denied any knowledge of a extensive regime of petty spying that collected information on employees ' work habits, their love lives and even their lunch and bathroom breaks. "It really made our blood run cold," said Klaus Gehrig, chairman of Lidl 's supervisory board, in an interview with the mass circulation newspaper Bild am Sonntag. "We knew nothing about it and were just as astonished as everyone else." Gehrig said the spied-on workers would also receive what he described as a "thank-you payment" of €300 ($476) each. Frank Michael Mros, head of Lidl Deutschland, told Bild

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