The information revolution and its impact on the employment relationship: an analysis of the cyberspace workplace.

"Sparked by new technologies, particularly the Internet, the corporation is undergoing a radical transformation that is nothing less than a new Industrial Revolution." (1)

I. INTRODUCTION

Some commentators have likened the Information Revolution (2) to the Industrial Revolution.

(3) Where the Industrial Revolution offers historical perspective, the Information Revolution is ongoing. Despite this lack of historical perspective, it is already clear that "[t]he advent of the Internet has forced the business world to go through a massive, unprecedented exercise in managing change. Established companies in traditional industries are just beginning to grapple with the nature and magnitude of the changes." (4)

One of these changes is the impact of the Information Revolution on the employment relationship. This paper analyzes the extent of the Information Revolution's impact with regard to the adequacy of pre-existing law to regulate the modern cyberspace workplace. While the cyberspace workplace can include a discussion of the rise and fall of "dot.coms," the focus of this paper is on the working environment and the employment relationship generally, rather than on the information technology industry specifically. Changes in the working environment began as early as the 1960s with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-based project that enabled computers to interact. (5) The resulting Internet grew exponentially, and by the year 2000, sixty-four million homes used computers. (6) That number is expected to reach seventy-seven million by the year 2004. (7)

Workplaces also began to take advantage of these new Internet opportunities. In 2000, one estimate showed that nearly twenty-one million people worked from home. (8) That number is expected to increase to forty million by 2004. (9) According to a WorldCom study, more than two-thirds of Americans have engaged in virtual work. (10) Had the economy not taken a downturn, by 2002, consultants and contract workers would likely have accounted for half of the hi-tech workforce at large companies with more than $1 billion in revenue. (11) It is in these striking figures that we find the cyberspace workplace--a place where employees and employers utilize virtual work, remote employment and other aspects of employment.

The new cyberspace workplace, however, creates legal uncertainty with regard to the ability of existing legislation to operate in an Internet-enabled environment. We have engaged in an evaluation of the key legal categories most relevant to the employment relationship in cyberspace. Our analysis focuses on different areas of the law in order to ascertain where and if such uncertainty exists.