Slashdot Mirror
"Micro-Gig" Sites Undermining Workers Rights?
Mystakaphoros writes "An article in The Atlantic examines the effects sites like TaskRabbit, Fiverr, and Rev.com are having on employment and freelancing. (I would add Amazon's Mechanical Turk to the list as well.) As the article mentions, 'Work is being stripped down to the bone. It's as if we're eliminating the 'extraneous' parts of a worker's day — like lunch or bathroom breaks — and paying only for the minutes someone is actually in front of the computer or engaged in a task.' How many Slashdotters have used these sites, either to hire or work? What's been your experience?"
The difference is that generally the "labour" part of the equation is an inflated hourly rate in order to cover the down-time in between tasks. They also have minimums so that if it takes 10 minutes you still get billed for 30. And
Generally freelancers have become accustomed to properly accounting for this extra rate charge on every billable hour to fill in the gaps. When you're "working" for mechanical turk you're really no longer an employee you're a business owner. Not everyone is cut out to run a business and nor should they need to, specialization is important. However, with businesses looking to become more efficient they can start calling their janitor a "contractor" and make them pay all of the payroll taxes. Technically that's illegal unless the janitor is also responsible for buying his own mops, brooms and can set his own hours but companies have been pushing the edge of what's legal (and often crossing it) for some time. The goal is often to make as many people 'freelance' as is humanely possible to avoid paying benefits or taxes or comply with safety regulations since their "employees" aren't actually employed--they're separate private businesses working alongside them.
The easiest way to avoid worker's rights is to avoid making them legally an employee.
My wife did Mechanical Turk for a few weeks when out of work, and oh boy. The only way to make even minimum wage is to completely game the system. It is supposed to be self quality checking, but that doesn't really work. Her work (writing in this case) was so far above the norm (she did graduate college) that it was off the scales. The max she could make doing honest work was around $3-$4 per hour. Most workers there just spam the system trying to grab jobs that are we few cents more, cut and paste some garbage, rinse and repeat. In other words, you get what you pay for.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
MOST STATES do not require breaks or lunch periods for employees. Or vacation, holiday, sick pay, insurance, minimum hours, max hours, etc...
Irrelevant, since these people are NOT employees. They are contractors. When I use Mechanical Turk to farm out work (and I often do) the Turkers set their own hours, they use their own equipment, they are free to work on other jobs, etc. Those criteria make them contractors, not employees. USA labor law is further irrelevant since very few of these people are based in the US. Most of the Turkers I have worked with are in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh).
I don't always post anonymously, but when I do, its because I'm talking about something wrong that I see go on everyday where I work.
Dice is listing thousands of jobs which are open to the "right person" but not to everyone with the listed qualifications. In many cases, the companies posting these positions reject everyone that applies for them in order to justify hiring someone who needs a visa. A lack of qualified candidates for all the "open positions" in my department is used as a management excuse to extend work hours out beyond 50.
A headhunter I used to get temp-to-hire work through once told me that in many cases ads were an attempt to entice specific individuals to leave their position with a competitor, or a signal to said individual that they should quit their position and begin waiting for their no-compete to run out.
Point being, there are lots of reasons to advertise a job opening in the technical fields that have nothing to do with a position actually being open to all qualified comers.
The thing is that if someone in a country that does not provide those things can provide that service for less than you can you should be in some other line of work. You need to offer something which makes your labor worth more than the labor of that guy living in that country that does not have those expenses. If you and your fellow citizens cannot find ways to pay for those expenses and produce goods or services which are worth the added cost, your country is going to go under.
The classic example of this is what happened right after NAFTA passed...and then what happened a few years later. Right after NAFTA passed a bunch of companies relocated their production facilities to Mexico because they could pay workers in Mexico about 10% of what they needed to pay workers in the U.S. (even after calculating for additional transportation expenses) and still pay better than any other employers in that area of Mexico (thus getting the best of the available workers). A few years later many of those companies were moving their production facilities back to the U.S. because, for the work they needed done, Mexican workers were less than 10% as productive. This was not a universal experience. It only applied to certain industries. In other industries, Mexican workers were productive enough to be competitive (and in some industries they were productive enough that U.S. workers were NOT competitive).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
No, Captain Belligerence, contractors in the USA (and most of the West) work in this manner. If they don't want to, they can try to be a conventional employee. As a contractor, you have great freedom and flexibility but few perks-- tradeoff.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
yeah, pretty much. that's how supply & demand works.
That assumes a functional market.
The IT labor market is dysfunctional.
But no one believes it because everyone employed is cocky.
I'm employed and therefore I qualify and everyone who isn't employed is a screwup.
The system works!
I don't care WHAT you do, this what will happen:
You will be at your job working on whatever your working on. You'll see new technology coming along and you'll think "Gee, I better learn it!"
In meantime, you're working your 55+ hours a week with the too frequent 80 hour weeks because your employer refuses to hire an entry level kid to do your grunt work.You're tired. You have to keep up with your job. Take a class? Hardly! Study on your own? Too tired. You NEED to get away from the computer sometime!
Then the system your working on becomes a "Legacy" system and your company farms out the work to Elbonia. They then tell you that you can keep your job if you move to Elbonia and take an Elbonian level of salary - a 75% pay cut.
You think, "I got skills! Fuck'em!" and you turn them down; which is exactly what they thought you'd do.
So you enter the labor market. And you see that your skills are "obsolete". You take classes but to no avail because the employers want a few years of experience
You say, "You'll learn! On your own time and dime!'
They tell you that they need someone 'to hit the ground running!'
So you go on. And on. And on....
Now folks start wondering why a skilled IT person who "knows computers" is out of work. They think what's his problem? Is he a drunk? Obviously, there's something wrong.
You may not hear it often, but you get that feeling based on the way people react and questions they ask you and their tone. Like:
"Have you been looking for work all this time?!"
With a tone of NFW! No one with skills should have to look for work in IT! Can't happen.
Out of work == No good.
And you notice that all the folks who are working steadily are a bit younger.
You're told, "Well, older people want more money!"
You try to retort - like shouting in a hurricane - No! I'll take market rates!
But you're still told that you don't have the skills - I don't care what skills you have, you WILL be told that.
Then folks start reading about how Google just has young faces, about the H1-Bs, and other dysfunctional things that happen in the IT field. Then they say, "Have you considered leaving the field?"
"yes. But, when I try, I'm asked, 'Why do you want to leave such a lucrative career?!'"
Please shoot me.
When I as at IBM, I saw all these "old" mainframers being moved into the OS/2 area, and being young and arrogant thinking, "The poor out of date bastards! That'll NEVER happen to me!"
And it did.
Until the IT labor market stops being so dysfunctional - and the blame rests squarely on the employers - I tell folks, if you can, go to medical school./
But that won't last either .....