Big Brother Is Washing…Uh, Watching You

Restaurants seeking a recipe to prevent food-borne disease are getting a new tool to wash their hands of unsanitary employees.

An infrared detection system that alerts employers whenever workers leave the rest room without washing up will be tested at the Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J., and the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas.

The device works like this: Employees wear a badge that triggers an infrared sensor whenever they enter the rest room. A second sensor at the soap dispenser activates if they remain at the sink for at least 15 seconds. An electronic record is kept each time any employee uses the rest room, noting whether each worker stopped at the sink. Hand-washing scofflaws also bear a blinking badge if they skip the soap.

Union officials are concerned about employers recording intimate worker activities.

“I’m laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing, people walking around with beeping tags. What’s next, a camera in the bathroom?” said Robert McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union in Atlantic City.