Justice

Your Cell Phone Could Be the New Workplace Whistleblower

A new app could make it safer and easier for employees to file complaints—and ensure legal action.
Mike Blake / REUTERS

Whether it’s physical dangers like standing on ladders or operating heavy machinery, legal violations like wage theft or lack of paid leave, or emotional perils such as harassment, it’s no secret that the workplace is a potentially hazardous environment. And yet even the legal protections put in place to safeguard an employee’s well-being occasionally fall short.

A forthcoming app plans to allow workers to file complaints to the appropriate local authorities. The yet-to-be-named app—which is still in the planning stages—is a collaboration between The Workers Lab, a union-backed accelerator program based in Oakland, and SeeClickFix, a nationwide civic tech company that helps urbanites report non-emergency issues in their neighborhoods.