In February 2020, Wesleyan announced that it would be switching from its various employee time-keeping systems to a new consolidated software—Workforce Time—for many of its workers on campus.
Concerns over the software company’s geofencing technology and apparent pride in cutting labor costs for employers invoked immediate pushback from numerous workers and students. Physical Plant and clerical workers voted unanimously to oppose the new software, as did the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA). The United Student/Labor Action Coalition (USLAC) released a petition that received over 1,300 signatures from students, faculty, staff, and alumni calling on the University to halt the implementation of Workforce, publish its contract with the software company, and hold a public town hall in which workers could discuss the new system.
None of these demands were met, and after the campus shut down due to COVID-19 in the spring, the University moved forward with implementing Workforce in a majority of its workplaces. Now, nearly a year after its implementation, many staff and student workers still struggle with the same initial concerns raised against Workforce.
This semester, members of USLAC interviewed student workers from Long Lane Farm about their experience with the implementation of Workforce. Previously, Bon Appetit paid farm workers in exchange for some of their produce and allocated a set amount of hours per week (between 80-100) that they could pay farmers for their labor. Rather than a system based on clocking in and out, farm workers would fill out a spreadsheet with the number of hours they worked weekly, which the financial manager would then submit to Bon Appetit every Thursday. For many farmers, this system worked effectively. Cameron Berry, a junior in their second year working at Long Lane, shared: “It was nice, it allowed us to have some behind-the-scenes control, making sure we don’t go over the allotted amount.”
Until the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester, Long Lane was not aware that Workforce would be implemented in their workplace. The semester began with general confusion about how this system worked and how they would be compensated for their labor. Though farm work started right away, the university did not actually implement Workforce for farm workers until 5 weeks into the semester. Sophie Linett, a senior in her third year working with Long Lane, explained the immediate logistical issues that the university created for farmers: “Right away it was like, we don’t know when we’re going to get paid for the work we’ve been doing in the beginning of the semester.”
One of Workforce’s distinctive features is its geofencing technology; the mobile app tracks workers’ locations so that they cannot clock in until they are physically in their workplace. From the start, this technology did not work consistently at the farm, often claiming student workers were not at this location when clocking in. This created unnecessary extra work for the collective’s manager, Connie, who had to call farm workers to confirm their hours every time they worked.
Further problems arose as the fall semester continued. The farm workers were tasked with figuring out how to get compensated for the 5 weeks of labor they did before the implementation of Workforce. “The hours that were backlogged, Cameron Williams [the farm’s financial manager] was sending to Bon App, and Bon App was not accepting them for various bureaucratic reasons. They needed to know exactly when everybody worked… It was just lost in the process. Things were taking a long time,” Linett said. Ultimately, the university did not pay Long Lane workers for their 5 weeks of labor in September and October until mid-December, during the finals period.
Berry and Grey Simon, a first-year in his second semester working at the farm, shared with USLAC about how this struggle impacted workers, especially those with differing physical abilities and FGLI students. “A couple of my friends were really concerned that we were not actually going to get paid because there was all this back and forth of the hours getting rejected and having to reapply. It was actually really stressful, especially because one of my friends is FGLI and so he needs that money to help support himself which is really concerning if we never got paid,” Simon said. Berry shared another anecdote about the distressing impact of farm workers not knowing if they would ever be compensated for those first 5 weeks: “I have a friend who is on work-study who was working on the farm and had to quit because they were just not confident that they were ever going to get paid… They also have chronic pain so getting to the farm and back when they weren’t sure if it was going to pay off at all was really difficult so they ended up not coming back.”
While farmers were finally paid in December, significant issues with Workforce continue into the present. Replacing the farm’s old spreadsheet method with Workforce’s time clocking system has turned Bon App’s hours limit into a logistical nightmare. Berry explained, “There’s a big problem with it being so individualized, where every person is clocking in their own hours and then we don’t know what that looks like.” With no way to coordinate the hours each farmer submits after the fact, there has been constant confusion about hour allotments, and the farmers have often been unable to work the full allowed number of hours out of fear of inadvertently going over the limit. Linett also observed that all of the extra budgeting and logistics, along with the less collaborative environment caused by the Workforce system, have been especially discouraging for new workers joining the farm. “It makes the farm less accessible to some people and a less easy space for people to integrate into,” Linett said.
According to Linett, geofencing has also caused problems for farm workers even when the technology works correctly. “Part of our work involves going on Home Depot runs [for supplies],” she explained. With geofencing, workers who physically leave the farm can no longer be paid for this crucial part of Long Lane’s operations. “There are a lot of people doing a lot of unpaid labor” due to geofencing, Linett said. Simon added that “there is also no WiFi on the farm,” so workers without cell service have no choice but to “clock in and out on campus” outside of the geofence.
During Wesleyan’s rollout of Workforce, university spokespeople claimed that geofencing was an “entirely optional” feature that departments employing student workers could elect to use “for convenience.” However, farmers were never consulted about the use of geofencing at Long Lane. Bon App uses geofencing for all its employees, and farm workers were lumped into this system, leaving no flexibility for Long Lane–a student-run cooperative with a completely different workplace context from other Bon App workplaces–to use a system more appropriate for its own needs. When workers complained about the logistics of geofencing on the farm, Linett said they were told “this is just policy.”
The university can solve the problems that workers on the farm have experienced. Long Lane workers would like Bon Appetit to lift the hour limit, get rid of the dysfunctional geofencing system, and return to an atmosphere of mutual trust and collaboration. Workers say that if their concerns cannot be dealt with under the current system, the University should switch back from Workforce rather than risk workers not being paid for their labor.
It is unacceptable for Wesleyan and Bon Appetit to prioritize implementation of the new timekeeping system over their workers’ basic rights. If you want to help raise awareness of this issue, please share this article. If you’re interested in helping to organize against this and other threats to workers’ rights on campus, we’d love to have you at one of our weekly meetings. And finally, if you are a student worker and have had negative experiences with Workforce that you think more people should know about, fill out our survey to let us know!