Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 14, 1993                   TAG: 9308140050
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BALTIMORE                                LENGTH: Medium

THOSE BOSSES AT CROWN HAVE MIGHTY WIDE EYEBALLS

That's because Crown executives hundreds of miles away can monitor and talk to workers through an electronic surveillance system installed at 110 of the company's 450 stations.

Crown Central Petroleum Corp., with operations in the Roanoke Valley, said the system helps ensure that the Slushie machine is full, gives workers a feeling of security, boosts morale, and prevents theft.

"We can say, `Look, you need to turn the lights on, you don't have your smock on tonight, let's do those things.' Tell them there's too much money in the cash drawer," said Ed Parker of Crown's Coronet Security Systems division.

Critics point to Crown's employee surveillance system as just one in a growing stockpile of weapons employers are using to force improvements in worker productivity. The result is alienated, resentful employees, the critics claim.

But the Baltimore-based company thinks it has such a good idea that it has sold the system to about 120 convenience stores and gas stations run by other companies since 1991, when Crown put the surveillance devices on line, Parker said.

Other companies are using computer chips in name badges to track the movement of employees. The computer magazine MACWORLD reported in July that more than 20 percent of U.S. firms have searched employee computer files, voice mail, electronic mail or other network communications.

"That's terribly offensive. It's very stressful. We've had lots of telephone union employees testify that they just feel they are being harassed to death," said Rep. Don Edwards, D-Calif., who requested a 1987 congressional report on computer surveillance. "It actually is not against the law, but it's very bad public relations and very bad employer-and-employee relations."

The congressional report said the United States is becoming a "surveillance society" and called for legislation to deal with technological threats to the dignity and privacy of workers.

Surreptitious telephone surveillance also would be limited to two hours a week and employees would have to be made aware of the time periods, said John Weintraub, staff director of the House subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations.

Crown Central Petroleum has informed Williams it won't oppose the bill or support any attempts to amend it, Weintraub said.

Edwin Locke, a professor of management at the University of Maryland College of Business, said systems such as Crown's can be useful if they improve job performance and aren't used for spying.

"If you can sneak things on them, they can sneak things on you, and then it will be a battle of who can sneak things rather than trying to reach the organization's goals," he said.

Even though employees might object, such systems have been shown to be effective. Truck-monitoring systems have reduced speeding, and employees treat customers better if they know they are being watched, Locke said.

Installing cameras in a public space doesn't violate employee or customer privacy rights, but the system should be used carefully, said Stuart Comstock-Gay, director of the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.