The city has begun installing high-tech “palm scanners” in government agencies to track the comings and goings of workers – touching off outrage among some municipal employees.
The futuristic devices – replacing old-fashioned employee timesheets – were set up a couple of weeks ago in the Department of Design and Construction.
The city’s Office of Payroll Administration is in the process of installing the readers at numerous agencies as part of a multimillion-dollar automated timekeeping system known as “City Time” that’s been in development for years.
They palm machines don’t provide security at building entrances but are located on workers’ floors. They employees key in a number and then put their palm on the machine to prove that they have arrived at work, repeating the process when they leave.
“We do not believe people we represent should have to go through a process they find really offensive,” declared Jon Forster, first vice president of Local 375, which represents about 600 professionals at Design and Construction.
The union is filing a grievance at the Office of Collective Bargaining, arguing the administration can’t unilaterally switch from timesheets to hand scanners.
Some workers have taken matters into their own hands – literally – by turning up with surgical gloves as a form of protest.
In the meantime they’re “palming in” as ordered.
Forster said his members are “not clock watchers” and find it “insulting and degrading to all of a sudden be forced to stick their hand in a time clock every morning.”
Rachel Minter, Local 375’s lawyer, said there’s also concern that the scanners’ capabilities could be extended to track employees wherever they go.
DDC had no immediate comment, but one city official said the complaints are tied more to union politics than privacy rights.
“There’s an election coming up and they’re trying to turn this into Big Brother,” said the city official. “Out of all the locals, this is the one local that has decided to go over the top on this.”
Another city official pointed out that the 150,000 of the “hand geometry” machines, manufactured by Ingersoll Rand, are in use around the nation.
The official said the machines can’t be used for purposes other than routine timekeeping.
“It can’t be used for identification. It wouldn’t work. It’s only good for verification after you type in your four-digit code,” said the official.
“We’re not NSA [the National Security Agency]. All we’re trying to do is timekeeping.”
Cynthia Estlund, a professor at NYU Law School who specializes in labor issues, said that in the private sector a similar situation “could very well be held to a topic of bargaining.”
But Estlund also said workers would probably have a difficult time restricting management’s right to monitor them on the job.
“The law is spotty and stingy when it comes to employee privacy rights,” she said.
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Hands-on approach
How the Hand Punch 4000 biometric scanner works:
1) Employee keys in assigned four-digit code
2) Employee places hand on scanner
3) Scanner uses size and shape of employee’s hand to verify ID
4) Process can be completed in 5 seconds
5) Manufacturer Ingersoll Rand boasts that Hand Punch 4000 system “eliminates buddy punching” and “your hand is your badge.”