Schools Chancellor Joel Klein yesterday fired a veteran worker whose movements were tracked for five months through the GPS device in his cellphone, leading to charges that he was repeatedly cutting out early.
“This individual was getting paid for not working,” said schools spokeswoman Margie Feinberg, explaining Klein’s decision to accept an administrative law judge’s recommendation to ax John Halpin, a longtime supervisor of carpenters.
Halpin had worked in the school system for 21 years and was conscientious enough to show up as much as two hours early for his 8 a.m.-to-3:30 p.m. shift.
He said he was never told that the cellphone he was given in 2005 could be used to monitor his every move and questioned the accuracy of the data it produced.
But neither argument swayed administrative law Judge Tynia Richard, who found Halpin guilty of submitting false time records when he left early on numerous occasions between March and August 2006.
She issued a decision saying the Department of Education was under no obligation “to notify its employees of all the methods it may possibly use to uncover their misconduct.”
Jeremy Gruber, legal director for the National Work Rights Institute in Princeton, N.J., said only two states in the nation – Connecticut and Delaware – require that employees be given advance word that their movements might be tracked if they accept a GPS device.
A spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services said there was no citywide policy on providing that warning.
The 11-page booklet does contain one cautionary note: Even when the GPS feature is restricted, “location information may still be available to the phone’s owner, fleet manager or account administrator.”
Halpin’s lawyer, Alan Wolin, couldn’t be reached for comment.
At least one union has negotiated a deal limiting how GPS data can be used. Drivers for United Parcel Service can’t be disciplined based on GPS tracking under the company’s contract with the Teamsters.
But city officials said the issue had never been raised in negotiations with municipal unions.