Some collaborators of Facebook of an Accenture site in Austin are facing a real wage disaster that has left many without pay.
Site workers handle moderation, customer service and other activities for Facebook and Whatsapp and if the situation is not resolved, the interruption of work has already been threatened.
The problems started as early as January 4, when some workers noticed errors in the system that tracks paid leave (PTO), a confusion that has been attributed to a recent change in payroll providers on the site. Things got more serious when the January 6 payroll did not arrive. Internal payroll systems showed that many wages were zero and workers had no idea when they could get their money.
In an open letter to the CEOs of Facebook and Accenture, posted on an internal bulletin board, a group of workers pledged to stop working at the site until pay slips have been fully issued.
“If these problems are not resolved immediately, a work stoppage will be enacted“, the letter promised.”The interruption of the works will begin on January 7, 2022 if nothing is resolved“.
Several payments were issued to affected workers shortly after the letter was sent, and Accenture says the company saw no indication of coordinated work stoppage at the site in the following days.
An Accenture office chief executive said he is not sure when the problem will be resolved. “The amounts due will be paid. We will provide them as soon as possible“.
Some workers have received payments from the company, which are bound to go up until the full amount is calculated correctly. But the site’s employees say that not all of them have received these payments and many are in dire financial straits.
As of Monday night, an Austin site worker claimed that more than 50 people on his team had not yet been paid. “I know many who are late on bills, utilities, food and rent“he told The Verge.”When you get paid only $ 16 an hour in a city like Austin, losing a check is like losing a leg“.
“Some employees have had to take out early paycheck loans just to have enough money to buy food for their children“another employee told The Verge.
Reached for comment, the Accenture representative Stacey Jones pointed out that the company is working to solve the problem. “We recently changed payroll provider and faced some unexpected challenges during our first payroll management with the new provider“Jones told The Verge.”Our priority since last week has been to make our people who have encountered problems pay and we continue to encourage our people in need of assistance to contact their supervisor or human resources, to better help them.“.
Meta (parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp) often subcontracts services to companies like Accenture. A 2019 survey by The Verge of an Accenture site in Austin that moderated YouTube videos found that managers often forced employees to work during breaks and give up vacation in the face of high demand.
Reached for comment, Facebook confirmed the outage and highlighted Accenture’s efforts to address it. “Accenture has informed its employees of this problem“, he has declared Kadia Koroma, representative of Meta, “and is working to fix it as soon as possible“.
Source: The Verge.
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