America Online
Is Facing Challenge Over
Free Labor
By LISA NAPOLI
For the last 10 years,
America Online Inc., the nation's largest
online service, has relied on volunteers to help maintain the virtual
community it
offers its members. The volunteers, who are known as
"community leaders,"
perform tasks like answering questions from
subscribers,
supervising chat rooms and enforcing the service's rules.
The reward has
been a free account with the service and, America
Online says,
the opportunity to play a more active role in its community
of 16 million
members.
Now at least
seven former volunteers are
challenging
the practice, and have asked the
Labor Department
to look into whether the use
of volunteer
labor by America Online and its
subsidiary,
America Online Communities Inc.,
violates the
Federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
A Labor Department
spokesman would neither
confirm nor
deny that AOL was under
investigation,
but several former volunteers
provided copies
of a letter from the
department's
Employment Standards
Administration
saying it would look into the
matter.
Information about
the investigation was published two weeks ago on
Observers.net,
a Web site set up last September by former volunteers.
A spokeswoman
for America Online, Ann Brackbill, said on Friday
that she was
aware of the Web site and the information about an
investigation,
which she said had prompted the company to "initiate
contact" with
the Labor Department. But she added, "We do not
elaborate on
discussions we have with regulatory agencies."
America Online,
which has 12,000 employees, also has more than
10,000 volunteers,
Ms. Brackbill said. Volunteers commit to a minimum
of four hours
a week of work, in addition to training time and time spent
on required
paperwork. Some of the former volunteers said they devoted
much more time
to the company.
Marilyn Perkins
of Chicago, a co-founder of Observers.net, is one of at
least seven
people who have registered separate complaints with the
Labor Department.
Ms. Perkins and other volunteers acknowledge that
they signed
on to work for AOL in exchange for a free account, which
now costs $21.95
a month. But many volunteers signed up when the
value of a free
account was potentially much higher, because the online
service billed
users at an hourly rate and charges for heavy users ran in
the hundreds
of dollars.
Although their
complaints vary, the former volunteers say that AOL relies
on volunteers
to do work that should be paid. Ms. Perkins says the
company has
dismissed volunteers who have asked for compensation or
complained about
the program, and has taken away their free accounts.
In their complaints
to the Labor Department, the former volunteers do
not make explicit
demands for back pay. The issue, they said, is to
publicize the
situation and to change the way the online service uses
unpaid labor.
"Some are filing
for revenge, some are filing to stop AOL from abusing
others, some
simply want their AOL accounts returned to them," said
Kelly Hallissey,
a former volunteer who lives in Greensboro, N.C.
"I'm filing to
support others' allegations and also to object to how AOL
has treated
myself and many others."
Under the Fair
Labor Standards Act, a person must be compensated for
time spent at
job-related activities that benefit the employer, regardless of
how the job
is classified. There is a difference between volunteering for a
charitable cause
and volunteering to perform work that is critical to a
company's business,
said Jeffrey Chamberlain, an employment lawyer
based in Albany
who is not involved in the AOL dispute.
In a claim like the one made by the
former AOL volunteers, Chamberlain
said: "The more it looks like a real
job, the less likely it is to be deemed
volunteer. The kinds of things they
are describing would make lawyers'
bells go off."
But Ms. Brackbill defended the
volunteer program,
saying it was a formalization of contributions that
AOL subscribers
have made to the service since it began in 1985. "It's
an organic thing
that sprouted from what people love to do online," she
said. "Community
and participation are the DNA of the Internet."
AOL is not the
only online company to use volunteers. Many Internet
companies that
offer community features rely on members to enforce
standards and
to contribute to the community in some fashion.
For instance,
Ivillage, an online women's network, uses more than 1,000
volunteers to
manage message boards and chat communities.
Michael Rubin,
an employment lawyer in San Francisco, says the nature
of work is being
redefined because of computer and Internet connections
that are readily
available in homes, potentially creating new legal issues
for companies
that use remote help.
If found in violation
of wage and hour laws, an employer could be
required to
pay double the compensation to which the workers should
have been entitled,
Rubin said. If it is found that the violations were
willful, the
employer could be subject to civil penalties and possibly
criminal prosecution.
A decision against
AOL could set a precedent for the online industry
that might force
companies to rethink the way they use volunteers, Rubin
said, adding,
"If the industry in fact was kept operating because of
volunteer workers,
it may have to reconfigure."
Lisa Napoli at
napoli@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and
suggestions.