Labor Group Creates Walmart ‘Chat’ App

The retailer is advising employees not to download OUR Walmart’s group chat app.

November 17, 2016

NEW YORK – An app created by worker group OUR Walmart is in the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer’s crosshairs, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this week Bloomberg reported that the new WorkIt app answers questions about Walmart’s policies and workplace rights using Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence bot. So-called peer experts “feed information into a database and are on call to answer questions when Watson can’t,” notes the news source. Regarding OUR Walmart, Bloomberg adds, “the employee and labor activist group that’s been pushing for better wages and working conditions, is behind the effort” and for the past four years has organized protests and walkouts around the Friday after Thanksgiving “to draw more attention to the problems of low-wage workers.” This year, however, OUR Walmart is promoting the WorkIt app instead, which launched on November 14.

Meanwhile, Walmart Stores Inc. is discouraging store workers from downloading the app, “as the battle between employers and labor groups increasingly shifts to social media,” notes the Journal, saying that the company has instructed store managers to advise employees that the app wasn’t made by Walmart and described it as a scheme to collect personal information. OUR Walmart 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 a document viewed by the news source.

The WorkIt app invites users to register with their name, email, telephone number and ZIP code. Users can share their job title and Walmart store number; however, the app isn’t for just Walmart employees—anyone can download it.

“There is no way to know if the details this group is pushing are correct,” Walmart spokesperson Kory Lundberg told the Journal. “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.”

The news source writes that as unions struggle to maintain membership and relevancy, social media has increasingly come into play. Walmart employees already exchange information and share stories on social media sites, and there is one Facebook group of Walmart employees that boasts more than 20,000 members.

The WorkIt app is a bit different in that it allows users to chat and solicit personal information. “This is a battle for the hearts and minds of the workers,” Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University, told the Journal, adding that in the future, “human resource management will be on people’s telephones.”

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