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Cliff notes: * Google raters are subcontractors for contracting companies, among which one is Leapforce. * Google flaunts new contract requiring takers to use

by croon 10y ago

Cliff notes: * Google raters are subcontractors for contracting companies, among which one is Leapforce. * Google flaunts new contract requiring takers to use employees instead of subcontractors. * Leapforce decides to employ raters, but at much reduced salaries and no benefits. * Raters who work mostly from home are the losers in the equation, and have a hard time finding other work. This seems like the future of the gig economy. Same work load, less pay, less security, less employee power.

JBReefer 10y ago
I agree with your notes but not your conclusion - wouldn't these people be way more screwed if they couldn't work from home at all? These aren't devs we're talking about, they likely don't have many options besides this or something way shittier not at home.
kartan 10y ago
> This seems like the future of the gig economy. Same work load, less pay, less security, less employee power. The gig economy is just a big scam on taxpayers shoulders. Companies get the benefit of low paid workers and low or not-at-all taxes. And the rest of the society has to pay the burden of increasing poverty. It is a kind of Tragedy of the Commons, one rips the benefit while the whole pays the cost. It is fueled by the mentality of "at least they have a job". Having a job is not a goal in itself, the goal is that people are able to support themselves in a reasonable way. Having a job is a means to that end. People will be better with a Basic Income, waiting for a better opportunity that brings more value to them and to society. Once you land on a low paid, a-lot-of-hours job it is hard to get out of it. And companies that depend on this kind of jobs are inefficient and have no incentive to do things better.
- ksk 10y ago
  Its the MBA mentality of offloading risk. Todays consumer protections, employee benefits, health insurance, etc are all business "risks" that "hurt" the competitiveness of businesses. Companies like uber have managed to offload that risk onto society by turning their employees into daily wagers.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  It's a consistent theme across the crony capitalist economy that "Privatize the profits; socialize the losses" is the way to get rich. i.e., any costs that can be pushed onto the taxpayer should be.
- james_pm 10y ago
  The remote work aspect makes it even easier to lose sight of the human doing the work. Once they are just another resource in the dashboard like an AWS instance, some system somewhere can spool more up when you need them, cut them loose when you don't.
  - eru 10y ago
    That was the whole advertisement pitch of Amazon's Mechanical Turk, wasn't it?
- dismantlethesun 10y ago
  > The gig economy is just a big scam on taxpayers shoulders. Companies get the benefit of low paid workers and low or not-at-all taxes. And the rest of the society has to pay the burden of increasing poverty. All things being equal, companies would aim to spend the same TOE (total cost of employment), on each worker regardless of if they are a contractor or a employee. A contractor being paid $15/hour has to pay self-employment tax to cover medicare and social security. A company who hired the same worker, would only do so at say $14/hour to make up for the taxes that they now cover. The goal of contracting isn't to pay less, it's to handle jobs that are irregularly distributed so you aren't literally paying people to sit around. The only cases where you'd choose to employ part-time instead is if a workers' presence is physically required (e.g. Starbucks), or near instant time is extremely important (e.g. not Uber).
pdelbarba 10y ago
I'm curious if a move to large numbers of people working from home under these conditions might actually be very much in the corporation's interests as it allows compartmentalization of communications between employees regarding pay/unionization. You can't unionize if you don't know who else works for the company.
eru 10y ago
This might be an example of regulation backfiring. If the regulation say that some class of employees will get some expensive benefit, the most rational response might be to make sure you don't have any employees classified that way.
ballenf 10y ago
Another take on the Cliff notes: * Google raters are subcontractors for contracting companies, among which one is Leapforce. yep * Google flaunts new contract requiring takers to use employees instead of subcontractors. Don't get the use of "flaunts" here. Google is rolling out new requirements that its contractors use employees instead of contract labor. Leapforce's main or only client is Google, so had to make changes to its policy of only using contract labor. * Leapforce decides to employ raters, but at much reduced salaries and no benefits. There's no indication that pay per hour is going down and they've never had benefits. The change is that contractors are becoming employees and limited to working 26 hours a week. * Raters who work mostly from home are the losers in the equation, and have a hard time finding other work. Yes, it seems that raters drew the short straw here. Hard to know for sure whether Google's fear of labor regulators or it's well-intentioned desire to improve working conditions were the cause. This seems like the future of the gig economy. Same work load, less pay, less security, less employee power. The model Leapforce has is has been around for decades. The internet has made the model more feasible, but working from home as a contractor for a single company is not a new evil. A few points to further counter balance your Cliff notes: * Raters get paid from $13.50 to $17.50 per hour for work from home and are upset about the cut in hours because this is significantly more than they can make anywhere else. * Raters are now going to become employees and thus the employer will be paying Social Security and employer taxes, saving the employees somewhere on the order of 50% in income tax liability. Unless their pay is cut to compensate, their per-hour rate is going to go up in this change. And it's worth repeating, they don't have any benefits now so aren't losing them. * Employment status also brings unemployment coverage and disability benefits in case they get fired or become disabled. Side note: I hope for Leapforce's sake and that of their contractors/employees that they got Google's blessing before making their CEO so available and transparent on the relationship with Google. I just don't think I'd ever give the press much access to me on the record talking about my largest (or maybe only) client without vetting every word with the client first. Even if everything in the article was already well known by labor regulators, I'd be very concerned that articles like these paint a much bigger target on my back.

by croon 10y ago

JBReefer 10y ago

I agree with your notes but not your conclusion - wouldn't these people be way more screwed if they couldn't work from home at all? These aren't devs we're talking about, they likely don't have many options besides this or something way shittier not at home.

kartan 10y ago

> This seems like the future of the gig economy. Same work load, less pay, less security, less employee power. The gig economy is just a big scam on taxpayers shoulders. Companies get the benefit of low paid workers and low or not-at-all taxes. And the rest of the society has to pay the burden of increasing poverty. It is a kind of Tragedy of the Commons, one rips the benefit while the whole pays the cost. It is fueled by the mentality of "at least they have a job". Having a job is not a goal in itself, the goal is that people are able to support themselves in a reasonable way. Having a job is a means to that end. People will be better with a Basic Income, waiting for a better opportunity that brings more value to them and to society. Once you land on a low paid, a-lot-of-hours job it is hard to get out of it. And companies that depend on this kind of jobs are inefficient and have no incentive to do things better.

ksk 10y ago
Its the MBA mentality of offloading risk. Todays consumer protections, employee benefits, health insurance, etc are all business "risks" that "hurt" the competitiveness of businesses. Companies like uber have managed to offload that risk onto society by turning their employees into daily wagers.
Analemma_ 10y ago
It's a consistent theme across the crony capitalist economy that "Privatize the profits; socialize the losses" is the way to get rich. i.e., any costs that can be pushed onto the taxpayer should be.
james_pm 10y ago
The remote work aspect makes it even easier to lose sight of the human doing the work. Once they are just another resource in the dashboard like an AWS instance, some system somewhere can spool more up when you need them, cut them loose when you don't.
- eru 10y ago
  That was the whole advertisement pitch of Amazon's Mechanical Turk, wasn't it?
dismantlethesun 10y ago
> The gig economy is just a big scam on taxpayers shoulders. Companies get the benefit of low paid workers and low or not-at-all taxes. And the rest of the society has to pay the burden of increasing poverty. All things being equal, companies would aim to spend the same TOE (total cost of employment), on each worker regardless of if they are a contractor or a employee. A contractor being paid $15/hour has to pay self-employment tax to cover medicare and social security. A company who hired the same worker, would only do so at say $14/hour to make up for the taxes that they now cover. The goal of contracting isn't to pay less, it's to handle jobs that are irregularly distributed so you aren't literally paying people to sit around. The only cases where you'd choose to employ part-time instead is if a workers' presence is physically required (e.g. Starbucks), or near instant time is extremely important (e.g. not Uber).

pdelbarba 10y ago

I'm curious if a move to large numbers of people working from home under these conditions might actually be very much in the corporation's interests as it allows compartmentalization of communications between employees regarding pay/unionization. You can't unionize if you don't know who else works for the company.

eru 10y ago

This might be an example of regulation backfiring. If the regulation say that some class of employees will get some expensive benefit, the most rational response might be to make sure you don't have any employees classified that way.

ballenf 10y ago

Another take on the Cliff notes: * Google raters are subcontractors for contracting companies, among which one is Leapforce. yep * Google flaunts new contract requiring takers to use employees instead of subcontractors. Don't get the use of "flaunts" here. Google is rolling out new requirements that its contractors use employees instead of contract labor. Leapforce's main or only client is Google, so had to make changes to its policy of only using contract labor. * Leapforce decides to employ raters, but at much reduced salaries and no benefits. There's no indication that pay per hour is going down and they've never had benefits. The change is that contractors are becoming employees and limited to working 26 hours a week. * Raters who work mostly from home are the losers in the equation, and have a hard time finding other work. Yes, it seems that raters drew the short straw here. Hard to know for sure whether Google's fear of labor regulators or it's well-intentioned desire to improve working conditions were the cause. This seems like the future of the gig economy. Same work load, less pay, less security, less employee power. The model Leapforce has is has been around for decades. The internet has made the model more feasible, but working from home as a contractor for a single company is not a new evil. A few points to further counter balance your Cliff notes: * Raters get paid from $13.50 to $17.50 per hour for work from home and are upset about the cut in hours because this is significantly more than they can make anywhere else. * Raters are now going to become employees and thus the employer will be paying Social Security and employer taxes, saving the employees somewhere on the order of 50% in income tax liability. Unless their pay is cut to compensate, their per-hour rate is going to go up in this change. And it's worth repeating, they don't have any benefits now so aren't losing them. * Employment status also brings unemployment coverage and disability benefits in case they get fired or become disabled. Side note: I hope for Leapforce's sake and that of their contractors/employees that they got Google's blessing before making their CEO so available and transparent on the relationship with Google. I just don't think I'd ever give the press much access to me on the record talking about my largest (or maybe only) client without vetting every word with the client first. Even if everything in the article was already well known by labor regulators, I'd be very concerned that articles like these paint a much bigger target on my back.