Transforming the employer’s right to control employee behaviour in the digital economy

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the employer’s ability to control the behavior of employees in the conditions of digitalization, algorithmization, automation of work processes. In the article on the basis of comparative legal analysis of the legislation and judicial practice of the Russian Federation and the USA the forms and ways of realization of such control are studied; the conclusion is made that the right of control over the realization of the employee’s work duties is today one of the most important signs (if not the only sign) testifying to the presence of the labor legal relationship; the peculiarities of electronic monitoring of the employees’ behavior are established; it is marked that the control over the employee’s behavior in the conditions of the digitalization of the labor process. The conducted research allowed the author to come to the conclusion that the use of artificial intelligence in the sphere of control over employees has both advantages and disadvantages, but the lack of ability of the robot (artificial intelligence) to analyze the data collected by it allows to assert that the participation of a person (employer) in the decision on the legality (or, on the contrary, the illegality) of the employee’s behavior is still necessary today. Another result is that new technologies generate uncertainty about an employee’s right to privacy, and employers’ freedom to exercise control over employee behavior is increasingly perceived as going beyond reasonable expectations of privacy. In this regard, it was pointed out that the current labor law should be adjusted to establish rules and limits for monitoring employee behavior during working hours and at the workplace.