this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
128 points (97.8% liked)

Asklemmy

47927 readers
1132 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Well I don't know what a lawyer would actually do for me here. I haven't suffered any damages yet. Doesn't it have to directly impact me first, then I would have a case? The whole thing is about things NOT happening to me, eg NOT getting promoted.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago

A lawyer could point you in the right direction. Not all legal action is necessarily "damages" (also, the lack of a promotion is damages—if your boss says to you "You're my most skilled employee, but I don't want to give you a promotion because you're a woman", that's unlawful discrimination in any place that prohibits sexism. Of course in the vast majority of cases it is much harder to prove since the boss won't actually explicitly say that, but you get the principle of the law); legal action can be to correct a wrong, in this case changing company policy to ensure that employees are not discriminated against on the basis of not using this app. You can just explain the situation over email to a law firm that deals with labour law, and if perhaps you'd be better served by a different law firm for instance, they will be able to point you in that direction.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

A consultation with a lawyer will tell you what, if anything a lawyer will do for you. Pressure consisting of implied loss of opportunity is probably enough.

Alternately, you might not have a case, and a consultation will tell you that too.