Wal-Mart Tells Workers: Don't Download Labor Group's Chat App -- Update
November 15 2016 - 3:17PM
Dow Jones News
By Sarah Nassauer
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is warning store workers not to download a
smartphone app designed by OUR Walmart, an organization that
advocates for higher pay and other benefits, as the battle between
employers and labor groups increasingly shifts to social media.
The app, released on Android phones Monday, allows Wal-Mart
store employees to chat among themselves and receive advice on
workplace policies or legal rights, said leaders from OUR Walmart
on a conference call. The group declined to say how many people had
downloaded the app, which it tested with about 200 users.
Wal-Mart has instructed store managers to tell their employees
that the app wasn't made by the company and described it as a
scheme to gather workers' personal information, according to a
document viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The worker organization is "increasingly trying to get our
associates to turn over personal information to the union by using
deceptive and slick looking social media and mobile apps,"
according to the document.
OUR Walmart, which says it has thousands of paying members,
isn't a traditional union because members don't have collective
bargaining rights. It separated last year from the United Food and
Commercial Workers Union, which has tried unsuccessfully for years
to organize workers at Wal-Mart's U.S. stores. In previous years,
the group has staged Black Friday protests at Wal-Mart locations.
This year it plans to encourage store workers to download the new
app over the holiday shopping weekend.
The app, called WorkIt, invites users to register by providing a
name, email, telephone number and ZIP Code. Users can also share
their job title and Wal-Mart store number, but anyone can download
the app. The app doesn't access a user's location or smartphone
contacts, and lets users opt out of photo access, said Dan
Schladerman, co-director of OUR Walmart.
"There is no way to know if the details this group is pushing
are correct," Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg said in an emailed
statement. "Our people are smart and see this for what it is; an
attempt by an outside group to collect as much personal and private
information as possible."
Wal-Mart has a long history of fighting union activity in its
stores. More recently, Wal-Mart has worked to address some
labor-rights leaders' concerns, increasing the starting wage of its
1.3 million U.S. employees to $9 last year, adding training aimed
at helping workers advance and other measures. Still, as the
country's largest private employer, it is often the focus of
workers' rights campaigns.
While other labor groups have created apps to broadcast news,
the WorkIt app is unusual because it allows users to chat with each
other and solicit personal workplace advice.
"This is a battle for the hearts and minds of the workers," said
Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark
University. In the future "human resource management will be on
people's telephones."
As unions struggle to maintain membership and relevancy, both
employers and organizers are rushing to control the messages
employees digest through social media and mobile devices. Employers
are launching mobile scheduling apps and finding ways to push human
resource messages out through social media or digital advertising.
Wal-Mart is in the process of rolling out a test of its own mobile
app to communicate with store employees, mostly as a way to quickly
give employees access to their schedules, said a person familiar
with the plans.
Wal-Mart employees are already swapping advice or sharing
stories on Facebook, Reddit, and other social media sites. For
example, there is one Facebook group for Wal-Mart workers with more
than 20,000 members. However, those conversations can be
disorganized or inaccurate, driving the need for an app with
curated responses, said OUR Walmart leaders.
OUR Walmart developed the WorkIt app with Quadrant 2, a New York
City-based software development company that has designed products
for companies and activist organizations including the American
Civil Liberties Union.
The app uses International Business Machines Corp.'s Watson
artificial-intelligence technology to build a set of answers to
employee questions over time, said Jason Van Anden, founder of
Quadrant 2. If Watson is stumped "there is a peer network of
experts that will interact with the users," said Mr. Van Anden.
Write to Sarah Nassauer at sarah.nassauer@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 15, 2016 15:02 ET (20:02 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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