The asymmetry
The imbalance underneath
Not a reason to prohibit monitoring. A reason the burden of justification sits with whoever is imposing it.
Why Employment Consent Is Weak
The imbalance that makes agreement unreliable is structural, not a matter of any particular employer's conduct.
Who Bears the Burden of Justification
The party with the power to impose should be the party required to explain, and in most organisations the burden sits the other way round.
The Employee Who Cannot Say No
The arrangement is agreed by a workforce in which some people could have refused and most could not, and the difference tracks things that have nothing to do with the work.
Collective Voice, Where It Exists
The asymmetry is partly corrected by numbers, which is why the presence or absence of a representative body changes the arrangement more than any policy.
The Contractor, the Agency Worker, the Migrant
Three groups outside the protections that apply to employees, subject to the same monitoring and frequently more of it.
Monitoring the Powerful and the Powerless
Surveillance intensity in most organisations is inversely related to seniority, and the usual explanations do not survive examination.
What Changes When the Workforce Is Organised
Organisation alters the arrangement before anybody negotiates anything, and the changes are mostly ones a careful employer would want.