AOL accused of using slave labor for greater profits.
1. Is slave labor legal in the USA?
2. Instead of suing for cash, which could amount to maybe $20 million, wouldn't these "volunteer slaves" be better off suing for back stock options, which would be worth a lot more?
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nytimes.com
May 25, 1999
AOL Volunteers Sue for Pay
By LISA NAPOLI
Two former volunteers for America Online have filed a class-action
lawsuit in Federal court in Manhattan in an attempt to obtain back
wages, saying they and thousands of other volunteers should have been
compensated for their work.
The plaintiffs, Kelly Hallisey of Nassau County
and Brian Williams of Dallas, allege in their suit
that AOL violated the Fair Labor Standards
Act, a federal law that mandates that a minimum
wage be paid to employees, by using volunteers
to perform work for the company.
The volunteers, often called community leaders,
perform a variety of tasks for the service, like
moderating chat rooms, policing bulletin boards
and overseeing other volunteers.
Hallisey and Williams and their lawyer, Leon Greenberg, said they were
hoping other volunteers for the online service would join the suit, which
was filed in United States District Court on Monday. The amount of
damages sought was not specified in the suit.
"I see it as a very simple case," Greenberg said on Tuesday. "AOL is a
for-profit business. What community leaders did was very essential to the
service in terms of what they were selling to the public. The
minimum-wage laws require people get paid a minimum wage. When
AOL says these people were volunteers so we didn't have to pay them, I
don't see it."
A spokeswoman for AOL, Ann Brackbill, said no one at the company
had seen the complaint and could not offer comment on it. But, she
added, "I can tell you the company believes the community leader
program reflects industry practices and that community leaders are
volunteers."
The lawsuit comes six weeks after several former volunteers, including
Hallisey, said the United States Labor Department was investigating
AOL for its use of unpaid labor in response to volunteers' complaints.
AOL said at the time that it had 10,000 volunteers.
Hallisey said on Tuesday that she decided to file the suit because, in the
aftermath of news reports on the investigation, she was "contacted on a
daily basis" by other volunteers, both former and current, who had had
similar experiences but who she said were afraid to speak out. Hallisey
maintains a site on the Web called Observers.net, where AOL volunteers
gather to discuss, and dissect, the online service.
For years, before Internet companies grew to be worth billions,
volunteers frequently contributed their services to build online
communities, often in exchange for free Internet access.
But now, Hallisey said, America Online is a "different place" than it was
when many volunteers started giving their time. Up until a few years ago,
the service charged hourly usage fees, which for heavy users amounted to
monthly bills in the hundreds of dollars. Now, AOL charges a flat
monthly fee of $21.95.
But in other ways besides the pricing plan, both Hallisey and Williams
said, the online service has changed.
"AOL used to have a real sense of community," Hallisey, 35, said. " It
was a situation that used to be mutually beneficial, and now I see people
being taken advantage of."
Williams, 23, said he worked about
3,000 hours from 1996 through 1998
as a volunteer in various areas of the
online service. He said he was
terminated from his duties after
instigating a strike among other
volunteers after the service said it was
going to eliminate the free accounts.
"They're making thousands and
thousands of dollars off your slave
labor, off each and every member,"
he said in a telephone interview on
Tuesday. "I'm tired of seeing all these community leaders, remote staff
being treated that way and not being paid."
The case raises the thorny issue of how to define work in an age when
people can work from home using their own personal computers and
online connections. Many sites on the Web rely on contributions from
volunteer community members in areas like bulletin boards, personal
home pages and chat rooms to keep the site active and engaging.
Michael Rubin, an employment lawyer in San Francisco, said that for a
lawsuit to succeed under the Fair Labor Standards Act, it must be shown
that a company relied on the volunteers to perform essential services for
the online service.
"If the economic realities test demonstrates that they worked as
employees, then this is a straightforward case," he said. "Calling them
volunteers does not make them volunteers any more than calling a tail a
leg makes a dog have five legs."
Greenberg, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said: "We're dealing with an
Internet type of employment. This didn't exist five years ago, but in many
respects it's a very basic legal issue. If people work and provide services
to a commercial operation, they have to be paid. If AOL wasn't in the
business to make money, yeah, they wouldn't have to pay them."
The cost of damages to be paid by AOL, should they lose the case, is
dependent on how many volunteers join the suit. As part of their work,
volunteers keep detailed records of the time they spend working for the
service, Greenberg said, and he estimated it could amount to $20 million
if all current an former volunteers joined the suit.
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
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