American here. I have a job where they have a perk where you submit receipts through their app or website and you earn points you can cash out at some point if you shop with clients of our company. Sounds like a nice little promotional incentive, right?
Well, they say it’s optional but it’s not. You can apparently get in trouble for not using this and we’ve been pulled aside about it and warned we must use this stupid thing.
The idea is the app you install must be given permission to see your location at all times. It then checks the area to ensure you are favoring clients of our company as opposed to our competitors when you shop. When you shop at one of our clients, you must report your receipt to the company showing everything you bought while there. Even if you are buying gas, you need to report it.
I don’t participate in this invasion of privacy. I actually want to put less of my data out there in general, not more. I don’t even have a grocery store discount card. We were told in a meeting this week that promotions in this company are influenced by how much/if you participate in the program. We were told people have been denied promotions because they did not participate in this program.
If I’m off the clock they don’t get to decide what I do. They can fuck themselves. And I am surely not giving them a little report of what I buy. But saying we are ineligible for career advancement within the company unless we buy groceries, gas, etc from preferred vendors seems sketchy. Is this legal?
First thing to ask is what state you live/work in? Is it a right-to-work state? If so, then they can fire you or choose to not promote you for no (reported) reason at all, which very likely means you have no legal recourse. If they were to come out and directly say in documented way that they will fire or not promote you if you don’t use this app, that might be different. You’d need to talk to a lawyer who is familiar with laws in your state. But you’d also need documented evidence of this, which means emails sent stating this, or a recording (keep in mind if your state has 2-party consent laws) of a higher-up saying it.
If you’re in one of the 27 Right to Work States, though, there’s likely very little you can do about it short of finding a different job.
the meeting was recorded where she told us that and the sent a recap email out later with a minimum requirements for compliance with this program. I tried to send that recap out to a personal email for records but I cant get it to go through. There doesn’t seem to be a way to preserve evidence here.
Try printing the email to a pdf?
I’d definitely take that document to a local lawyer (preferably one that specializes in labor cases) and ask if there’s anything there.
By chance, you aren’t in a union, are you? If so, take this to your union rep, too. You’re union will have lawyers who will deal with this sort of thing.
Can you export it as an email archive file and copy it to a USB stick or upload somewhere accessible from your personal computer?
weird, it finally came through on my machine