Imagine you're a marketing research telephone interviewer, or even a telemarketing rep.

You spend your day on the phone interviewing or selling, talking to a faceless someone through a headset.

And you probably spend some part of your day having all or some of your calls monitored by your supervisors. Do you care? Does it bother you? Do you wonder what will be done with the information gathered from such monitoring?

A U.S. Senate bill (S.984) under consideration would require notifying employees of such monitoring. Currently, as noted by Brian Kennedy, chief of staff of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Productivity, there are no limitations on monitoring activity.

"Our office got hundreds of complaints from organizations that represent millions of people," he told a recent PhoneBiz/Chicago Association of Direct Marketers (CADM) audience mainly of telemarketers and telemarketer service providers, most of whom adamantly oppose S.984 and H.R. 1900, its House of Representatives counterpart. Pnmarily, unions and consumer advocacy groups are behind the bill.

CADM, which represents direct marketers throughout the Midwest, is concerned that the Senate bill's definition of workplace monitoring is too broad, according to attorney James Rieman of Chicago-based Siegel, Lynn and Capitel Ltd. He and CADM see too many "substantial limitations" on how and when electronic monitoring can be used.

But Rieman also played devil's advocate, telling the audience: "If you call me to give me your views, your boss can listen in. I think that's wrong. I find that offensive."

The committee continues to redraft the bill to find a middle ground between supporters and opponents. Strong consideration is being given to suspending clauses requiring specific notice of monitoring. Also, where the bill would grant less monitoring of more-tenured employees, that could change if proposed wording is included that makes new job tasks (project to project) an open door for unnotified monitoring.

"Restricting monitoring when you're trying to do quality control could be very damaging," said Diane Bowers, executive director of both CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organizations) and CMOR (Council for Marketing and Opinion Research). "We share similar concerns" with telemarketers on this issue.

Telemarketers want definitions of workplace privacy because, as consultant Mitch Lieber of CADM and its PhoneBiz special interest group say, with the supposed electronic information highway coming to the U.S., the definitions need to be written first.

Kennedy doesn't argue that. "As technology advances, managers have more and more ways to monitor their staffs," he said. That's good, he added, because monitoring can generate more productivity. But abuses can happen, and that's the reason for S.984. Unbridled electronic monitoring is the "Big Brother of the workplace," he said. "We think there has to be some privacy in the workplace," although the committee realizes "managers have legitimate needs."

"I'd be offended," Kennedy said, "if someone opened [my mail] and read it." If this bill isn't passed, employers have the right to open employees' e-mail and read it without employees' knowledge.

The issue is to "balance your rights to manage your employees and their rights to privacy," Kennedy said. If the bill passes, "you'd have to notify job applicants of monitoring, too," he responded to one question, and "you can't randomly monitor without notifying.

"There is somewhat of a public outcry" on the right to privacy, Kennedy said, and "the media addresses it regularly," which is what spurred politicians to draft a bill to address it.

"This would apply to public sector employees, too," he said, noting the federal government won't exempt itself from the bill's provisions. r

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Diane Bowers: The bill would damage the ability to conduct quality control.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): James Rieman: The bill as it stands is too broad.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Brian Kennedy: The bill would require notifying employees that they're being monitored.

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by Howard Schlossberg

Howard Schlossberg is special projects editor for the AMA Publications Group.