CDT, GFI, Others Send Memos Urging White House to Take Action on Electronic Workplace Surveillance

Today, Governing for Impact (GFI), the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), and 19 organizations urged the Biden administration to take action on an emerging front in the labor movement: electronic workplace surveillance. Employers across the American economy are increasingly using electronic surveillance and algorithmic management (ESAM) to track and monitor their employees – with serious impacts on worker safety and health. ESAM has been shown to harm workers’ mental and physical wellbeing, hinder their ability to organize, and limit their access to rights of employment. 

In a series of memos directed to the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the White House Domestic Policy Council, GFI, CDT, and their coalition partners detailed a slate of executive actions federal agencies can take to protect workers from the health and safety harms of ESAM. Specifically, the groups are calling for:

• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to develop a workplace standard to regulate ESAM based on its existing statutory authority to regulate hazards to workers’ physical safety and mental health;
• OSHA to incorporate ESAM in certain existing guidance on workplace injury prevention and issue new guidance that comprehensively identifies workplace injury risks and solutions in warehousing; and
• The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to fund new research into the effects of ESAM on workers’ physical and mental health, including its impact on job strain, industrial accidents, and workplace injuries.

Read the full letter to federal agencies + list of signatories here.