12 ms·

A story about Upwork and freelancers

342 points by scott_s 8y ago

gigatexal 8y ago
Related: this is what I love about Twitter — people posting and getting support and the ability to shame publicly companies who are being jerks. Albeit I’m hearing only one side it seems that they’re trying to force companies who want to use stellar upworkers by putting them behind their own payroll paywall. How lame.
ddtaylor 8y ago
I have seen a similar thing by Upwork happen. The problem also is that by accepting the first freelance job you agreed to a two year exclusivity contract on the platform, so not accepting their new terms of payroll means you cannot work with them anymore. You might be able to work around it though by creating a new incorporation of changing juristiction, but that's a bit complicated. It's also not clear if Upwork's contract is legal or enforceable.
- pvaldes 8y ago
  > by accepting the first freelance job you agreed to a two year exclusivity contract on the platform I think that is only If you want to work for the same client again [Maybe has being changed in the last years?]. After a few jobs some clients will try to circumnavigate the platform. In any case I wouldn't be very surprised if some of this clients were disclosed as upwork employees in the future pushing their own agendas. After spending some time in the platform you can see lots of strange patterns repeating here and there.
creaghpatr 8y ago
What’s the best alternative to upwork at the moment? I almost put a job on there but they spammed the crap of me and the process was way to much for what we needed done.
- benatkin 8y ago
  I've heard from a friend that Gigster is quite good. He's a freelancer so I don't have the client perspective.
- pluc 8y ago
  mondo.com is recommended in the Twitter thread
  - dexterdog 8y ago
    Mondo is just a typical body shop. I did a very short contract through them once which was a nightmare. They took forever to pay and nobody seemed to understand the payment schedule so getting an answer as to when I was going to get paid was a constant punt of responsibility around the company. Sure it's just one experience, but they are crossed off in my book. I still get their recruiters emailing me on occasion (often more than one of them for the same position which is its own kind of mess), but I set the domain to just go right in the trash
    - dylz 8y ago
      Hilariously I've gotten phishing and malware from Mondo domain because their recruiters keep clicking on malware, compromising their accounts, etc.
- BjoernKW 8y ago
  Working directly with freelancers. Middlemen such as Upwork charge a markup for little to no benefit.
hughjd 8y ago
Is this Upwork trying to avoid falling afoul of tax legislation similar to IR35 in the UK? As far as I understand, it tries to crack down on people like OP who (in the view of the tax authorities) are essentially employees at a company but do the work freelance so both they and the company benefit from various tax perks. https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/what_is_ir35.aspx https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/what_is_ir35.aspx
- jseliger 8y ago
  This is likely much closer to the correct answer. I do grant writing for nonprofit and public agencies and some businesses (see http://www.seliger.com/blog http://www.seliger.com/blog if you're curious), and we sometimes need to sign forms that say we're independent contractors, not employees. There are complicated rules for determining who counts as an employee and who doesn't. Microsoft famously lost (or "settled?") a lawsuit around this issue: https://corporate.findlaw.com/human-resources/employee-or-independent-contractor-the-implications-of-microsoft.html https://corporate.findlaw.com/human-resources/employee-or-in.... I don't know the details of the case and found this piece via DuckDuckGo, so others may know more about it than I do. In short, some kind of tax / regulatory issues may lie at the bottom of this case, and the comment above should be near the top of the HN heap. Edit to add that, of course, this is no excuse for the company not explaining what's going on.
  - paulcole 8y ago
    Remember that in the US, as an employee/contractor you can sign whatever you want saying you are/are not a contractor and it’s completely worthless. The government decides how you’re classified, not you.
- em-bee 8y ago
  that was my impression too. except that the issue in some countries is not cracking down on fake freelancers, but on companies who avoid taxes by treating their employees as contractors, to the point that these contractors can sue their employers to receive full employment. upwork for sure didn't communicate very well in this case, so there is still cause for compleint, but only about how they handled this case, and not why. greetings, eMBee.
sqrt17 8y ago
With the raise of all these "platform" companies - basically some inbetween that solves some QA and paperwork issues, we see that (i) there are "natural" monopolies/monopsonies developing (e.g. people don't look further than Amazon marketplace, companies giving out all their work via upwork, people watching only Youtube videos) and then (ii) that these platform companies start behaving in abusive and/or arbitrarily damaging ways. Does anyone else think that this should be an issue for targeted regulation? No one would accept a company taking over the road network and then randomly trashing people's cars for incomprehensible reason, yet people seem to be dreamy-eyed and naive about these new inbetween platform companies and seem to think that the market will solve itself. (Which is - as may be known - not the case with monopolies)
- HissingMachine 8y ago
  In some cases these platforms are market response to regulations already in place, like in Finland where I live freelancers use a billing service which basically employs them for the duration of their freelance work, because it's easier and sometimes even cheaper than forming your own company and working with the clients directly. So in those cases, it would be preferable to work on the regulation that created the first problem, not to add more regulation to solve a problem that was created by the market reaction. But having said that, there should be sensible regulation that protects individuals against bad business practices and abusive corporations for sure.
- koboll 8y ago
  The problem here seems to be twofold: ambiguous policies, and little care for transparency and communication. On the policies side: Upwork doesn't seem to have real written rules in place on at what point too many jobs for one company puts them at risk of violating the CA freelancer law. This makes it easy for a person to inadvertently place their livelihood at risk by doing what Upwork would otherwise be encouraging them to do -- more business through Upwork. On the transparency side: Once someone breaches this invisible line, Upwork doesn't feel the need to communicate it to anyone. That would be expensive, and it seems to cut against Upwork's interests, so the wire is tripped silently and the party on either side of the transaction basically goes mad with confusion while they try to figure out what happened, until they finally exhaust themselves and give up. Each of these is inexcusable and absolutely needs to be civil offense. The stories of people silently and irreversibly shut down by impenetrable platforms and then not able to even reach a human who can explain what went wrong are legion with internet-based services. Now that those services form the basis of a large swath of working people's livelihoods, this absolutely needs to end. Part of the cost of doing business should be clear rules and clear lines of communication when the rules need to be enforced, and an appeals process staffed by humans, or else these companies should be forced to pay out for lost income.
jorgemf 8y ago
In my country is illegal to have someone as a freelance doing the same as a full time job. So I see the point of upwork. If that company is your only client and you are working full time with them, they should hire you (at least in my country). In my country you have more rights if you are full time employee than if you are a freelance, as for example a monthly pay after they fire you to help you to find another job
- fulafel 8y ago
  This is remotely possible, but does not explain the malfeasance in communications toward both parties that relied on Upwork.
- sfifs 8y ago
  Yup this seems to basically be co-employment risk mitigation. I have seen situations where there is a hard limit on how long we can hire a contractor for a task through an agency. I have also seen limitations in what we can specify, measure, reward and what we cannot. The issue is basically that for contractors, you generally pay no benefits or retirement plans. However, if they are effectively employees, you do need to pay them that (ref. Uber driver cases where they are suing for classification as employees)
- BjoernKW 8y ago
  That's precisely why these full-time situations should be avoided when working as a freelancer. Freelancing is a type of self-employment. Hiring someone full-time for an extended period of time is not. Hiring freelancers just to save social security costs or to avoid labour laws is unethical at best and in many jurisdictions downright illegal. Setting up a payroll system to make this look good on paper is quite a dodgy move.
foo101 8y ago
Why are people still using Upwork? How many of these horror stories do we need to come across before people learn to ditch Upwork for good? Here was another horror story that I read sometime back: https://hackernoon.com/why-you-should-never-use-upwork-ever-5c62848bdf46 https://hackernoon.com/why-you-should-never-use-upwork-ever-... It has been two years since then! Heck, everyone ditched Digg in a matter of weeks due to a UI redesign. How on the same earth are people still using Upwork despite issues that are for more serious where people's livelihoods are affected?
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Some people don’t have any alternatives to upwork. Even though the platform is shit it still puts food on the table. I still have an upwork profile but most of my business is word of mouth. The reason I keep it is because due to how I phrased my profile, once in a blue moon I get a good lead.
  - tnolet 8y ago
    Freelancer here. I understand what you're trying to say. But this is simply not true. Freelancing existed before Upwork and will exist after.
    - alrehn 8y ago
      If you've got a lot of experience and connections, finding freelance work on your own is easy. The thing that feeds sites like upwork is people with less of that, people that will work for pennies, often from third world countries. For me, a few years ago I was in school and wanted some income from programming. I managed to get some work on a site that has since been bought by upwork, worked for $10-15 an hour. If not for that site I'd have never gotten that work, and be much worse off now.
    - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
      Most people I talk to who ask me about Upwork are the types who are just starting out and don’t have any connections. I too started on upwork and while certainly not a large sum, my first year offering design services I made 50k. I know this is a laughable sum by most salary standards for people who typically browse HN, but it’s nothing to be a shamed of for someone who went from unemployment to some sort of income on his own accord. I know of many freelancers who typically do between 40-50k on upwork plus other projects outside the platform. Personally, I have moved into consulting and do not rely on upwork. While still not a lot of money by standards here, I’m on track to 100k this year. I think the huge benefit is that I don’t have to deal with a lot of stress that comes with employment or nonsense the kind that the author talks about with upwork. Consider that platform your path to a sustainable freelance or consulting career. Gotta put in the grunt hours to move up. Of course there are many exemptions if you are in the right circumstances.
praptak 8y ago
So, why didn't the company contract him directly in the first place? We want you to work for us but do so via a third party? Sounds fishy.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Obviously because they value his work so much.
- pvaldes 8y ago
  Maybe because your 'client' is another freelancer billing (much more than they will pay to you) to a third part (aka 'The real client'), for the work that you did. I'm just speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised by something like this.
- em-bee 8y ago
  if you have dozens of contractors, dealing with only one company for payment for example makes things a lot easier... greetings, eMBee.
rmoriz 8y ago
Rule #1 when working with/on a platform: Transform customers to your own platform. Do it in a way that does not violate the AUP of the platform but do everything you can to „own“ the customer contact. Never become dependent of a single platform that temporarily may work in your interest. This rule is somewhat universal and matches all business types and platforms: Amazon, eBay, AirBnB, Uber, YouTube, App Stores.
- tedeh 8y ago
  Unsurprisingly, Upwork expressly forbids this. "Keep contact with potential clients inside Upwork [... or risk account termination]". https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211067618-Freelancer-Violations-and-Account-Holds https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211067618-Freel... I'd say once a good match between a contractor and a client has been established, both parties should swiftly move away from the Upwork platform, their rent-seeking "rules" be damned!
  - CodeWriter23 8y ago
    > Keep contact with potential clients inside Upwork. You can email, Skype, phone once on a contract.
    - GarrisonPrime 8y ago
      True, but of course Upwork cant help you if a problem then arrises. Not saying one shouldn't do it, but as Upwork is so flooded with shady characters I'd be hesitant to move clients off the platform too quickly.
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
I put a job up to code me a web app for $200 and nobody replied. What a shit platform.
- meerab 8y ago
  You offered to pay very little - Increase your budget to get replies.
- DonHopkins 8y ago
  Try explaining that you're an "idea guy" looking for a programmer to implement your great ideas, and that you'll compensate them in equity when you make it big, because your ideas are worth so much more than anyone's execution.
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    Nice. Sell them on a vision. Of course, why didn’t I think of that!
- kleopullin 8y ago
  This is a big issue with gigwork, major underpayment for services leading to non-livable wages for workers. This is about the level, too, pennies for dollars. I just learned about the law change, and I think it's driven in part by the low wages of Uber drivers and a recent lawsuit there. Great, you built a unicorn on the broken backs of low wage earners, structured the unicorn to avoid your share of infrastructure taxes (social security, workmans comp, road use taxes), but could you have done it with a less destructive wage structure? Probably. The laws have to catch up.
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    My comment was more of a mockery of the type of gigs you find on upwork. I have and currently outsource dev work for livable wages usually running into thousands of dollars.
- mythrwy 8y ago
k__ 8y ago
I looked into stuff lole Upwork and Fiverr. I'm not into projects that are under 3 months, so I didn't use these platforms. But there are enough alternatives (CodementorX, Toptal, Uplink)
sandov 8y ago
Twitter has such a crappy interface. Takes like 3 seconds to show anything at all, then half of the time it throws an error and asks me to try again, and when it works there's an unclosable banner asking me to join twitter.
- paulgb 8y ago
  Here's an alternative UI for this conversation https://treeverse.app/view/FFBtBwxG https://treeverse.app/view/FFBtBwxG (disclosure: Treeverse is a free-time project of mine)
  - carlsborg 8y ago
    This is great. Feature request: show the comment when the user hovers over the tree node.
  - imhoguy 8y ago
    This is really cool! One thing: Firefox content blocking somehow prevents avatars from loading - I get empty boxes.
    - paulgb 8y ago
      Weird, desktop or mobile? They load for me in Firefox on MacOS (it's actually my main browser, despite Treeverse being a Chrome extension for now)
      - imhoguy 8y ago
        Desktop. I know why now. I had "Browser Privacy" > "Content Blocking" > "All Detected Trackers" set to "Always", the default is "Only in private windows". And because FF uses Disconnect.me list it means all embedded social networking load gets cut off.
  - UncleEntity 8y ago
    While interesting it doesn't really help to read the conversation since it just shows a tree of profile pictures with zero content.
mkagenius 8y ago
Is it true that we would never be able to do away with such middle-men like uber, airbnb, google search and instead use some sort of non profit alternate of these?
- toofy 8y ago
  I imagine it is only a matter of time before we have alternatives to things such as Uber or Airbnb which arr driven by open source and cooperatively owned infrastructure. It’ll be so frustrating to watch the current leaders in these industries, the companies who are actively fighting for ways to get around regulation, as they suddenly begin to fight for regulation to keep cooperative or community owned infrastructures out of the competition pool.
  - ilaksh 8y ago
    I have been saying stuff like this for a few years. I think it is obvious that P2P distributed platforms will be leveraged to replace the monopoly company platforms. Things like cryptocurrency payments, Ethereum smart contracts, IPFS, Swarm framework, dat, WebRTC, etc.
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  "'Bout 50% of the human race is middlemen, and they don't take kindly to being eliminated. This quadrant, we play nice. Got enemies enough as it is." - Malcolm Reynolds
gojomo 8y ago
While the communication should have been clearer, this may not be a matter of Upwork wanting to upsell the client, but rather Upwork being under legal pressure from the IRS or state employment-protection agency (eg: California EDD) to classify workers as "W-2" employees rather than "1099" contractors – no matter what the workers or employers prefer as being in their own best interests. The government bureaucracies prefer this, and have at different times and in different jurisdictions cracked down on whatever other sorts of work-matching arrangements startups have attempted to use, for themselves or as a clearinghouse for others. The likely threshold for the "compliance issue" could have been that Wallace (the tweetstorm author) had few or no other clients, and was billing this single client full-time hours over a significant period. That full-time exclusivity is a major factor in the tax/regulatory authorities wanting someone to be classified as a salary- or wage-employee. Now, the very reason that the ultimate client prefers to use Upwork, rather than contract directly, is the headache of complying with these rules. They figure: we might screw up the 1099s, or cross some fuzzy compliance barrier, and then be hit with an enforcement action, if we try to handle our own freelancers. But if we use Upwork, well, they're the experts in ensuring "compliance", and have such a large roster of capable freelancers that neither we nor they would be at risk of appearing to be in an exclusive employment relationship. Thus: the ultimate villains here are the tax/employment-regulation authorities. They've made the sort of arrangement that both Wallace and the client prefer incur extra legal risks. Upwork has just been clumsy in communicating that, and helping those on its platform navigate the rules.
- CPLX 8y ago
  > Upwork has just been clumsy in communicating That’s a pretty big “just” Depriving someone of what had been a key business relationship without any communication is an abject failure.
  - gojomo 8y ago
    We know that Wallace is angry, and didn't get clearer info until he hunted it down, and that's certainly a failure. But his account doesn't include a timeframe of how many days he was in this "lockout" state. (Was it a day? A week?) It's not clear if other details would have come via other channels, if not for the early warning he got from his direct backchannel-contact. And suppose he and the buyer had reached a de-facto understanding: "we want to contract you for all your hours; please hold back your hours from other buyers to be ready to take our assignments". That's somewhat indicated by way this was quickly discovered at the moment he finished prior assignments (seemingly from the same buyer), and the buyer tried to hire him for immediate followup assignments. It's exactly that kind of de-facto exclusivity, where a single employer assigns all your work, that gets you slapped by tax/employment authorities. Were there other highly-rated, qualified freelancers the buyer could have used instead? Were there other buyers ready to contract for Wallace's services, at the same rate as he'd been getting? If either or both, then rather than primarily "depriving someone of… a key business relationship", Upwork could in fact have been ensuring enough independent-contractor relationships to keep both buyer and freelancer on the right-side-of-the-law. (It's possible placing a single gig with another freelancer, or taking a single gig from another buyer, would have been enough to prevent the lock-up.) After all, the buyer chose Upwork as the only way they hire contractors – and explicitly rejected the option to hire or contract with Wallace directly. They wanted Upwork to ensure compliance with tax/employment-law... which may be exactly what Upwork did for their paying customer, albeit with missing, poor, or sluggish communication.
Hoasi 8y ago
Adding back the middlemen beats the whole point of freelancing, which is to be on your own. I understand that sometimes the clients are using the "freelancers" platform(s). But if you trade independence for a little bit of convenience, don't be surprised to find you are being used.
- ilaksh 8y ago
  It's not about a little bit of convenience. It's about being able to pay rent. You have to go where the business is. The majority of the freelance jobs out there are on Upwork and cannot or will not afford benefits or competitive US rates.
eganist 8y ago
Unrolled: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1060659941491363841.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1060659941491363841.html
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Sounds reasonable to me. The company can't employ him for full-time work as a freelancer, due to regulations that protect workers rights. Whilst that might be a problem: it's like one person doesn't like it and millions need it to protect their livelihood. Upwork wouldn't inform him because it's nothing to do with him, he's a freelancer not an employee (the reason for the whole issue). If he were an employee obviously payroll (who Upworks represent in this case) would have to give notice etc.. So, in part he's complaining about not getting the protections that a full-timer does - notification of change of work, conditions, hours and such - whilst simultaneously arguing that he should be released from those same protections. I mean who wants holiday pay, sick pay, employer pension contributions, job security, etc. ...
- usaphp 8y ago
  > So, in part he's complaining about not getting the protections that a full-timer does Protections from who? Upwork? They are the one he needs protection from according to his story thread. They are the ones who are preventing him from earning his money by telling his client that they can’t Horne him anymore
- ilaksh 8y ago
  That company isn't going to hire him full time. It will cost a lot more. What this does is just take his biggest client away from him. They will just find another relatively inexpensive contractor. So if these 'protections' are going to work out then they need to account for the financial situation of the employers some how and also prevent them from dropping misclassified employees when they become properly classified.
vadym909 8y ago
This is fucked up but not because of a Government regulation which has good intentions and not because of Upwork who is trying to reduce its client's co-employment risk. All freelancers come across this situation over time and all are amazed but it is very reasonable. The labor laws in place are to safeguard companies from using employees in a fulltime manner but treating them as freelancers so they dont pay the 10% employer tax, or sick leave or vacation or minimum wage or overtime. Once you start hitting over 30 hrs/week, and for more than 3 months workign for the same company- you are hitting the red warning flags that either the IRS is going to start asking questions about why they're not getting the employer tax, if th freelancer claims unemployment they are going to look for the last employer. and the freelancer might himself decide to sue the client claiming he was misclassifed as a contractor. In this case all he has to do is enroll in the payroll service, pay a little more in taxes and reduce the co-employment risk to his client in exchange for more regular work. If not diversify your client base.
- hippich 8y ago
  1099 paid freelancers pay self-employment taxes, including the equivalent of all the social taxes. Why does government care? (there are no sick leave or vacation minimums in the USA)
chiefalchemist 8y ago
Not to get off topic but if this guy owned his own agency he would have / should have been well aware of IRS' regs. That said, his agency went under. Not so sound nasty, but perhaps common sense and detail are not his strong suit?
- majc2 8y ago
  Sure maybe. I guess my takeaway, is that a growing percentage of the workforce are locked into platforms for income - and how they are treated by those platforms can have a massive personal financial impact. Back in my freelancing days, I made a conscious effort to own the whole conversation - not to use a platform - but to do my own marketing. As an aside, I've found it interesting to watch youtube videos made by Uber, Ubereats, Deliveroo delivery people - by scooter chargers and how they all discuss how to make more money - or to complain about changes in policies having a financial impact on them.
  - chiefalchemist 8y ago
    IDK, those platforms are not agencies. They are a dating service meets escrow. They not in the relationship business. If the hiring company __and__ the freelancer don't know the law - and clearly both of themt should - is that Upwork's job? To give legal advice? Sounds more like Legal.com to me. Upwork saw an obvious red flag and covered it's arse. I think they could have done a bit better, but the Twitter rant is foolish, at best.
agentPrefect 8y ago
The amount of colossal horror stories I've heard about that company has made sure I don't go near it with a 9 foot pole. Their platform is designed to obscure process in lieu of exploiting workers - all whilst advocating to "serve the client". Utterly toxic.
gaius 8y ago
This was a systematic attempt by all three parties to defraud the Inland Revenue, Upwork is generally pretty sleazy but they blinked first this time.
kleopullin 8y ago
It's a bit in response to a change in California laws. California has always more strictly enforced employment regulations, especially with regards to contractor classifications. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/09/04/california-s-new-contractor-test-will-impact-the.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/09/04/cal...
Lazare 8y ago
Reading between the lines a bit, it seems: 1. Wallace was on Upwork to freelance. 2. Wallace was working for one client so much that he was at risk of becoming an employment relationship, rather than a freelancing one. 3. At no point was Wallace prevented from freelancing on Upwork; Upwork (as far as is known) presented all valid opportunities to freelance to Wallace. 4. Upwork communicated to the client that if they wanted to keep working with Wallace, they'd need to hire him. 5. The client refused to hire Wallace, and tried to find ways to circumvent labour laws. That seems to me to be a plausible interpretation of the facts from the twitter thread. In which case, the client seems to be the villain here, Upwork has done everything right, and Wallace seems to be a bit confused. In particular: "The marketing company, as confused as I was, pressed @Upwork further. @Upwork would NOT tell them, refused to tell them what those supposed compliance issues were. [...] So for the marketing company to continue assigning me work, they have to enroll in @Upwork's 'payroll service' to do it." This doesn't add up to me. Either Upwork is refusing to tell the client why they can't hire Wallace as a freelancer, OR they're telling the client they need to hire him as an employee. They can't really both be true! I don't know who's lying/confused here (maybe the client's HR dept is lying to Wallace's contact at the client, maybe the client is lying to Wallace, maybe Wallace is just confused), but it seems pretty clear that Upwork is angling for the "payroll service" upsell, and was telling the client very clearly that they need to hire Wallace. (That's not the story they told Wallace, but it doesn't seem like they really had Wallace's best interests at heart here, as they had a wide number of options available to them to fix this.) And: "So @Upwork is insisting the marketing company make me an employee" Yeah, pretty sure that's a legal requirement there buddy. And yes, I understand that both you and the client would like to circumvent it, but that's the point of labour laws; they only apply in cases where people wanted to do something they ban. Minimum wage laws have no impact on the engineer making $120k a year; they impact (for good or ill) the immigrant willing to work for $5/hour. Laws requiring firms to treat people working full time workers as employees were passed explicitly to cover the people who are happy to work full time as contractors.
- joeax 8y ago
  This all seems like the fault of the marketing company forcing the OP to go through Upwork in the first place. But Upwork should be up-front about this from day 1.
sheeshkebab 8y ago
This looks to be a typical problem with staffing body shops, especially those that bench their consultants without pay while having them wait for next gig. IRS and labor agencies look down on that sort of thing. There are similar more vague shops too MBOPartners (Randstad) and others, that have similar issues. Since they control all billing and contracts, they are basically this shady body shop that really needs to have its ass examined thoroughly and periodically by government. Advice to consultants - avoid these places and sign your own contracts direct with customers, and invoice your customers yourself.
dna_polymerase 8y ago
So Upwork actually recognized that this company is completely screwing him and he is mad at Upwork. Great. If the company is hiring him for so many jobs that he is basically a full time employee there they are the arseholes not Upwork. That marketing firm get their shit together, hire him and pay him the money (and the extras) he deserves.
hn17 8y ago
Upwork is partially automated. They probably use market position to manipulate users. I had some bad experience and no communication also. When you register account, Upwork "moderates" your profile and "decides" if you can start to work with clients. They have some kind of automated moderation with percentage pass value. It's not working great. If you aren't using in your resume a lot of words that they think are marketable you will be banned as not being eligible for working with Upwork. They will send you e-mail with misguiding information that you aren't good fit for them in nice words and that you can reapply in the future. Reality is that some bad data processing took place. For many people reading such type of e-mail that they send can be offending (if not depressing in cases when they didn't get what happened). In my case I just added some more keywords and tags because I was almost sure what happened and resubmitted profile. After a couple of hours my account was Up and Working ;) No sorry or any other information from them - not a nice way of starting bussiness with a client.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kemitchell 8y ago
PSA: The Supreme Court of California recently published a key decision on independent contractor versus employee classification, adopting an "ABC" test akin to the one adopted in Massachusetts. http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S222732.PDF http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S222732.PDF > [A] worker is properly considered an independent contractor to whom a wage order does not apply only if the hiring entity establishes: (A) that the worker is free from the control and direction of the hirer in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of such work and in fact; (B) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business; and (C) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed for the hiring entity.

342 points by scott_s 8y ago

Related: this is what I love about Twitter — people posting and getting support and the ability to shame publicly companies who are being jerks. Albeit I’m hearing only one side it seems that they’re trying to force companies who want to use stellar upworkers by putting them behind their own payroll paywall. How lame.

ddtaylor 8y ago

I have seen a similar thing by Upwork happen. The problem also is that by accepting the first freelance job you agreed to a two year exclusivity contract on the platform, so not accepting their new terms of payroll means you cannot work with them anymore. You might be able to work around it though by creating a new incorporation of changing juristiction, but that's a bit complicated. It's also not clear if Upwork's contract is legal or enforceable.

pvaldes 8y ago
> by accepting the first freelance job you agreed to a two year exclusivity contract on the platform I think that is only If you want to work for the same client again [Maybe has being changed in the last years?]. After a few jobs some clients will try to circumnavigate the platform. In any case I wouldn't be very surprised if some of this clients were disclosed as upwork employees in the future pushing their own agendas. After spending some time in the platform you can see lots of strange patterns repeating here and there.

creaghpatr 8y ago

What’s the best alternative to upwork at the moment? I almost put a job on there but they spammed the crap of me and the process was way to much for what we needed done.

benatkin 8y ago
I've heard from a friend that Gigster is quite good. He's a freelancer so I don't have the client perspective.
pluc 8y ago
mondo.com is recommended in the Twitter thread
- dexterdog 8y ago
  Mondo is just a typical body shop. I did a very short contract through them once which was a nightmare. They took forever to pay and nobody seemed to understand the payment schedule so getting an answer as to when I was going to get paid was a constant punt of responsibility around the company. Sure it's just one experience, but they are crossed off in my book. I still get their recruiters emailing me on occasion (often more than one of them for the same position which is its own kind of mess), but I set the domain to just go right in the trash
  - dylz 8y ago
    Hilariously I've gotten phishing and malware from Mondo domain because their recruiters keep clicking on malware, compromising their accounts, etc.
BjoernKW 8y ago
Working directly with freelancers. Middlemen such as Upwork charge a markup for little to no benefit.

hughjd 8y ago

Is this Upwork trying to avoid falling afoul of tax legislation similar to IR35 in the UK? As far as I understand, it tries to crack down on people like OP who (in the view of the tax authorities) are essentially employees at a company but do the work freelance so both they and the company benefit from various tax perks. https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/what_is_ir35.aspx https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/what_is_ir35.aspx

jseliger 8y ago
This is likely much closer to the correct answer. I do grant writing for nonprofit and public agencies and some businesses (see http://www.seliger.com/blog http://www.seliger.com/blog if you're curious), and we sometimes need to sign forms that say we're independent contractors, not employees. There are complicated rules for determining who counts as an employee and who doesn't. Microsoft famously lost (or "settled?") a lawsuit around this issue: https://corporate.findlaw.com/human-resources/employee-or-independent-contractor-the-implications-of-microsoft.html https://corporate.findlaw.com/human-resources/employee-or-in.... I don't know the details of the case and found this piece via DuckDuckGo, so others may know more about it than I do. In short, some kind of tax / regulatory issues may lie at the bottom of this case, and the comment above should be near the top of the HN heap. Edit to add that, of course, this is no excuse for the company not explaining what's going on.
- paulcole 8y ago
  Remember that in the US, as an employee/contractor you can sign whatever you want saying you are/are not a contractor and it’s completely worthless. The government decides how you’re classified, not you.
em-bee 8y ago
that was my impression too. except that the issue in some countries is not cracking down on fake freelancers, but on companies who avoid taxes by treating their employees as contractors, to the point that these contractors can sue their employers to receive full employment. upwork for sure didn't communicate very well in this case, so there is still cause for compleint, but only about how they handled this case, and not why. greetings, eMBee.

sqrt17 8y ago

With the raise of all these "platform" companies - basically some inbetween that solves some QA and paperwork issues, we see that (i) there are "natural" monopolies/monopsonies developing (e.g. people don't look further than Amazon marketplace, companies giving out all their work via upwork, people watching only Youtube videos) and then (ii) that these platform companies start behaving in abusive and/or arbitrarily damaging ways. Does anyone else think that this should be an issue for targeted regulation? No one would accept a company taking over the road network and then randomly trashing people's cars for incomprehensible reason, yet people seem to be dreamy-eyed and naive about these new inbetween platform companies and seem to think that the market will solve itself. (Which is - as may be known - not the case with monopolies)

HissingMachine 8y ago
In some cases these platforms are market response to regulations already in place, like in Finland where I live freelancers use a billing service which basically employs them for the duration of their freelance work, because it's easier and sometimes even cheaper than forming your own company and working with the clients directly. So in those cases, it would be preferable to work on the regulation that created the first problem, not to add more regulation to solve a problem that was created by the market reaction. But having said that, there should be sensible regulation that protects individuals against bad business practices and abusive corporations for sure.
koboll 8y ago
The problem here seems to be twofold: ambiguous policies, and little care for transparency and communication. On the policies side: Upwork doesn't seem to have real written rules in place on at what point too many jobs for one company puts them at risk of violating the CA freelancer law. This makes it easy for a person to inadvertently place their livelihood at risk by doing what Upwork would otherwise be encouraging them to do -- more business through Upwork. On the transparency side: Once someone breaches this invisible line, Upwork doesn't feel the need to communicate it to anyone. That would be expensive, and it seems to cut against Upwork's interests, so the wire is tripped silently and the party on either side of the transaction basically goes mad with confusion while they try to figure out what happened, until they finally exhaust themselves and give up. Each of these is inexcusable and absolutely needs to be civil offense. The stories of people silently and irreversibly shut down by impenetrable platforms and then not able to even reach a human who can explain what went wrong are legion with internet-based services. Now that those services form the basis of a large swath of working people's livelihoods, this absolutely needs to end. Part of the cost of doing business should be clear rules and clear lines of communication when the rules need to be enforced, and an appeals process staffed by humans, or else these companies should be forced to pay out for lost income.

jorgemf 8y ago

In my country is illegal to have someone as a freelance doing the same as a full time job. So I see the point of upwork. If that company is your only client and you are working full time with them, they should hire you (at least in my country). In my country you have more rights if you are full time employee than if you are a freelance, as for example a monthly pay after they fire you to help you to find another job

fulafel 8y ago
This is remotely possible, but does not explain the malfeasance in communications toward both parties that relied on Upwork.
sfifs 8y ago
Yup this seems to basically be co-employment risk mitigation. I have seen situations where there is a hard limit on how long we can hire a contractor for a task through an agency. I have also seen limitations in what we can specify, measure, reward and what we cannot. The issue is basically that for contractors, you generally pay no benefits or retirement plans. However, if they are effectively employees, you do need to pay them that (ref. Uber driver cases where they are suing for classification as employees)
BjoernKW 8y ago
That's precisely why these full-time situations should be avoided when working as a freelancer. Freelancing is a type of self-employment. Hiring someone full-time for an extended period of time is not. Hiring freelancers just to save social security costs or to avoid labour laws is unethical at best and in many jurisdictions downright illegal. Setting up a payroll system to make this look good on paper is quite a dodgy move.

foo101 8y ago

Why are people still using Upwork? How many of these horror stories do we need to come across before people learn to ditch Upwork for good? Here was another horror story that I read sometime back: https://hackernoon.com/why-you-should-never-use-upwork-ever-5c62848bdf46 https://hackernoon.com/why-you-should-never-use-upwork-ever-... It has been two years since then! Heck, everyone ditched Digg in a matter of weeks due to a UI redesign. How on the same earth are people still using Upwork despite issues that are for more serious where people's livelihoods are affected?

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
Some people don’t have any alternatives to upwork. Even though the platform is shit it still puts food on the table. I still have an upwork profile but most of my business is word of mouth. The reason I keep it is because due to how I phrased my profile, once in a blue moon I get a good lead.
- tnolet 8y ago
  Freelancer here. I understand what you're trying to say. But this is simply not true. Freelancing existed before Upwork and will exist after.
  - alrehn 8y ago
    If you've got a lot of experience and connections, finding freelance work on your own is easy. The thing that feeds sites like upwork is people with less of that, people that will work for pennies, often from third world countries. For me, a few years ago I was in school and wanted some income from programming. I managed to get some work on a site that has since been bought by upwork, worked for $10-15 an hour. If not for that site I'd have never gotten that work, and be much worse off now.
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    Most people I talk to who ask me about Upwork are the types who are just starting out and don’t have any connections. I too started on upwork and while certainly not a large sum, my first year offering design services I made 50k. I know this is a laughable sum by most salary standards for people who typically browse HN, but it’s nothing to be a shamed of for someone who went from unemployment to some sort of income on his own accord. I know of many freelancers who typically do between 40-50k on upwork plus other projects outside the platform. Personally, I have moved into consulting and do not rely on upwork. While still not a lot of money by standards here, I’m on track to 100k this year. I think the huge benefit is that I don’t have to deal with a lot of stress that comes with employment or nonsense the kind that the author talks about with upwork. Consider that platform your path to a sustainable freelance or consulting career. Gotta put in the grunt hours to move up. Of course there are many exemptions if you are in the right circumstances.

praptak 8y ago

So, why didn't the company contract him directly in the first place? We want you to work for us but do so via a third party? Sounds fishy.

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
Obviously because they value his work so much.
pvaldes 8y ago
Maybe because your 'client' is another freelancer billing (much more than they will pay to you) to a third part (aka 'The real client'), for the work that you did. I'm just speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised by something like this.
em-bee 8y ago
if you have dozens of contractors, dealing with only one company for payment for example makes things a lot easier... greetings, eMBee.

rmoriz 8y ago

Rule #1 when working with/on a platform: Transform customers to your own platform. Do it in a way that does not violate the AUP of the platform but do everything you can to „own“ the customer contact. Never become dependent of a single platform that temporarily may work in your interest. This rule is somewhat universal and matches all business types and platforms: Amazon, eBay, AirBnB, Uber, YouTube, App Stores.

tedeh 8y ago
Unsurprisingly, Upwork expressly forbids this. "Keep contact with potential clients inside Upwork [... or risk account termination]". https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211067618-Freelancer-Violations-and-Account-Holds https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211067618-Freel... I'd say once a good match between a contractor and a client has been established, both parties should swiftly move away from the Upwork platform, their rent-seeking "rules" be damned!
- CodeWriter23 8y ago
  > Keep contact with potential clients inside Upwork. You can email, Skype, phone once on a contract.
  - GarrisonPrime 8y ago
    True, but of course Upwork cant help you if a problem then arrises. Not saying one shouldn't do it, but as Upwork is so flooded with shady characters I'd be hesitant to move clients off the platform too quickly.

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago

I put a job up to code me a web app for $200 and nobody replied. What a shit platform.

meerab 8y ago
You offered to pay very little - Increase your budget to get replies.
DonHopkins 8y ago
Try explaining that you're an "idea guy" looking for a programmer to implement your great ideas, and that you'll compensate them in equity when you make it big, because your ideas are worth so much more than anyone's execution.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Nice. Sell them on a vision. Of course, why didn’t I think of that!
kleopullin 8y ago
This is a big issue with gigwork, major underpayment for services leading to non-livable wages for workers. This is about the level, too, pennies for dollars. I just learned about the law change, and I think it's driven in part by the low wages of Uber drivers and a recent lawsuit there. Great, you built a unicorn on the broken backs of low wage earners, structured the unicorn to avoid your share of infrastructure taxes (social security, workmans comp, road use taxes), but could you have done it with a less destructive wage structure? Probably. The laws have to catch up.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  My comment was more of a mockery of the type of gigs you find on upwork. I have and currently outsource dev work for livable wages usually running into thousands of dollars.
mythrwy 8y ago

k__ 8y ago

I looked into stuff lole Upwork and Fiverr. I'm not into projects that are under 3 months, so I didn't use these platforms. But there are enough alternatives (CodementorX, Toptal, Uplink)

sandov 8y ago

Twitter has such a crappy interface. Takes like 3 seconds to show anything at all, then half of the time it throws an error and asks me to try again, and when it works there's an unclosable banner asking me to join twitter.

paulgb 8y ago
Here's an alternative UI for this conversation https://treeverse.app/view/FFBtBwxG https://treeverse.app/view/FFBtBwxG (disclosure: Treeverse is a free-time project of mine)
- carlsborg 8y ago
  This is great. Feature request: show the comment when the user hovers over the tree node.
- imhoguy 8y ago
  This is really cool! One thing: Firefox content blocking somehow prevents avatars from loading - I get empty boxes.
  - paulgb 8y ago
    Weird, desktop or mobile? They load for me in Firefox on MacOS (it's actually my main browser, despite Treeverse being a Chrome extension for now)
    - imhoguy 8y ago
      Desktop. I know why now. I had "Browser Privacy" > "Content Blocking" > "All Detected Trackers" set to "Always", the default is "Only in private windows". And because FF uses Disconnect.me list it means all embedded social networking load gets cut off.
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  While interesting it doesn't really help to read the conversation since it just shows a tree of profile pictures with zero content.

mkagenius 8y ago

Is it true that we would never be able to do away with such middle-men like uber, airbnb, google search and instead use some sort of non profit alternate of these?

toofy 8y ago
I imagine it is only a matter of time before we have alternatives to things such as Uber or Airbnb which arr driven by open source and cooperatively owned infrastructure. It’ll be so frustrating to watch the current leaders in these industries, the companies who are actively fighting for ways to get around regulation, as they suddenly begin to fight for regulation to keep cooperative or community owned infrastructures out of the competition pool.
- ilaksh 8y ago
  I have been saying stuff like this for a few years. I think it is obvious that P2P distributed platforms will be leveraged to replace the monopoly company platforms. Things like cryptocurrency payments, Ethereum smart contracts, IPFS, Swarm framework, dat, WebRTC, etc.
UncleEntity 8y ago
"'Bout 50% of the human race is middlemen, and they don't take kindly to being eliminated. This quadrant, we play nice. Got enemies enough as it is." - Malcolm Reynolds

gojomo 8y ago

While the communication should have been clearer, this may not be a matter of Upwork wanting to upsell the client, but rather Upwork being under legal pressure from the IRS or state employment-protection agency (eg: California EDD) to classify workers as "W-2" employees rather than "1099" contractors – no matter what the workers or employers prefer as being in their own best interests. The government bureaucracies prefer this, and have at different times and in different jurisdictions cracked down on whatever other sorts of work-matching arrangements startups have attempted to use, for themselves or as a clearinghouse for others. The likely threshold for the "compliance issue" could have been that Wallace (the tweetstorm author) had few or no other clients, and was billing this single client full-time hours over a significant period. That full-time exclusivity is a major factor in the tax/regulatory authorities wanting someone to be classified as a salary- or wage-employee. Now, the very reason that the ultimate client prefers to use Upwork, rather than contract directly, is the headache of complying with these rules. They figure: we might screw up the 1099s, or cross some fuzzy compliance barrier, and then be hit with an enforcement action, if we try to handle our own freelancers. But if we use Upwork, well, they're the experts in ensuring "compliance", and have such a large roster of capable freelancers that neither we nor they would be at risk of appearing to be in an exclusive employment relationship. Thus: the ultimate villains here are the tax/employment-regulation authorities. They've made the sort of arrangement that both Wallace and the client prefer incur extra legal risks. Upwork has just been clumsy in communicating that, and helping those on its platform navigate the rules.

CPLX 8y ago
> Upwork has just been clumsy in communicating That’s a pretty big “just” Depriving someone of what had been a key business relationship without any communication is an abject failure.
- gojomo 8y ago
  We know that Wallace is angry, and didn't get clearer info until he hunted it down, and that's certainly a failure. But his account doesn't include a timeframe of how many days he was in this "lockout" state. (Was it a day? A week?) It's not clear if other details would have come via other channels, if not for the early warning he got from his direct backchannel-contact. And suppose he and the buyer had reached a de-facto understanding: "we want to contract you for all your hours; please hold back your hours from other buyers to be ready to take our assignments". That's somewhat indicated by way this was quickly discovered at the moment he finished prior assignments (seemingly from the same buyer), and the buyer tried to hire him for immediate followup assignments. It's exactly that kind of de-facto exclusivity, where a single employer assigns all your work, that gets you slapped by tax/employment authorities. Were there other highly-rated, qualified freelancers the buyer could have used instead? Were there other buyers ready to contract for Wallace's services, at the same rate as he'd been getting? If either or both, then rather than primarily "depriving someone of… a key business relationship", Upwork could in fact have been ensuring enough independent-contractor relationships to keep both buyer and freelancer on the right-side-of-the-law. (It's possible placing a single gig with another freelancer, or taking a single gig from another buyer, would have been enough to prevent the lock-up.) After all, the buyer chose Upwork as the only way they hire contractors – and explicitly rejected the option to hire or contract with Wallace directly. They wanted Upwork to ensure compliance with tax/employment-law... which may be exactly what Upwork did for their paying customer, albeit with missing, poor, or sluggish communication.

Hoasi 8y ago

Adding back the middlemen beats the whole point of freelancing, which is to be on your own. I understand that sometimes the clients are using the "freelancers" platform(s). But if you trade independence for a little bit of convenience, don't be surprised to find you are being used.

ilaksh 8y ago
It's not about a little bit of convenience. It's about being able to pay rent. You have to go where the business is. The majority of the freelance jobs out there are on Upwork and cannot or will not afford benefits or competitive US rates.

eganist 8y ago

Unrolled: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1060659941491363841.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1060659941491363841.html

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

Sounds reasonable to me. The company can't employ him for full-time work as a freelancer, due to regulations that protect workers rights. Whilst that might be a problem: it's like one person doesn't like it and millions need it to protect their livelihood. Upwork wouldn't inform him because it's nothing to do with him, he's a freelancer not an employee (the reason for the whole issue). If he were an employee obviously payroll (who Upworks represent in this case) would have to give notice etc.. So, in part he's complaining about not getting the protections that a full-timer does - notification of change of work, conditions, hours and such - whilst simultaneously arguing that he should be released from those same protections. I mean who wants holiday pay, sick pay, employer pension contributions, job security, etc. ...

usaphp 8y ago
> So, in part he's complaining about not getting the protections that a full-timer does Protections from who? Upwork? They are the one he needs protection from according to his story thread. They are the ones who are preventing him from earning his money by telling his client that they can’t Horne him anymore
ilaksh 8y ago
That company isn't going to hire him full time. It will cost a lot more. What this does is just take his biggest client away from him. They will just find another relatively inexpensive contractor. So if these 'protections' are going to work out then they need to account for the financial situation of the employers some how and also prevent them from dropping misclassified employees when they become properly classified.

vadym909 8y ago

This is fucked up but not because of a Government regulation which has good intentions and not because of Upwork who is trying to reduce its client's co-employment risk. All freelancers come across this situation over time and all are amazed but it is very reasonable. The labor laws in place are to safeguard companies from using employees in a fulltime manner but treating them as freelancers so they dont pay the 10% employer tax, or sick leave or vacation or minimum wage or overtime. Once you start hitting over 30 hrs/week, and for more than 3 months workign for the same company- you are hitting the red warning flags that either the IRS is going to start asking questions about why they're not getting the employer tax, if th freelancer claims unemployment they are going to look for the last employer. and the freelancer might himself decide to sue the client claiming he was misclassifed as a contractor. In this case all he has to do is enroll in the payroll service, pay a little more in taxes and reduce the co-employment risk to his client in exchange for more regular work. If not diversify your client base.

hippich 8y ago
1099 paid freelancers pay self-employment taxes, including the equivalent of all the social taxes. Why does government care? (there are no sick leave or vacation minimums in the USA)

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Not to get off topic but if this guy owned his own agency he would have / should have been well aware of IRS' regs. That said, his agency went under. Not so sound nasty, but perhaps common sense and detail are not his strong suit?

majc2 8y ago
Sure maybe. I guess my takeaway, is that a growing percentage of the workforce are locked into platforms for income - and how they are treated by those platforms can have a massive personal financial impact. Back in my freelancing days, I made a conscious effort to own the whole conversation - not to use a platform - but to do my own marketing. As an aside, I've found it interesting to watch youtube videos made by Uber, Ubereats, Deliveroo delivery people - by scooter chargers and how they all discuss how to make more money - or to complain about changes in policies having a financial impact on them.
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  IDK, those platforms are not agencies. They are a dating service meets escrow. They not in the relationship business. If the hiring company __and__ the freelancer don't know the law - and clearly both of themt should - is that Upwork's job? To give legal advice? Sounds more like Legal.com to me. Upwork saw an obvious red flag and covered it's arse. I think they could have done a bit better, but the Twitter rant is foolish, at best.

agentPrefect 8y ago

The amount of colossal horror stories I've heard about that company has made sure I don't go near it with a 9 foot pole. Their platform is designed to obscure process in lieu of exploiting workers - all whilst advocating to "serve the client". Utterly toxic.

gaius 8y ago

This was a systematic attempt by all three parties to defraud the Inland Revenue, Upwork is generally pretty sleazy but they blinked first this time.

kleopullin 8y ago

It's a bit in response to a change in California laws. California has always more strictly enforced employment regulations, especially with regards to contractor classifications. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/09/04/california-s-new-contractor-test-will-impact-the.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/09/04/cal...

Lazare 8y ago

Reading between the lines a bit, it seems: 1. Wallace was on Upwork to freelance. 2. Wallace was working for one client so much that he was at risk of becoming an employment relationship, rather than a freelancing one. 3. At no point was Wallace prevented from freelancing on Upwork; Upwork (as far as is known) presented all valid opportunities to freelance to Wallace. 4. Upwork communicated to the client that if they wanted to keep working with Wallace, they'd need to hire him. 5. The client refused to hire Wallace, and tried to find ways to circumvent labour laws. That seems to me to be a plausible interpretation of the facts from the twitter thread. In which case, the client seems to be the villain here, Upwork has done everything right, and Wallace seems to be a bit confused. In particular: "The marketing company, as confused as I was, pressed @Upwork further. @Upwork would NOT tell them, refused to tell them what those supposed compliance issues were. [...] So for the marketing company to continue assigning me work, they have to enroll in @Upwork's 'payroll service' to do it." This doesn't add up to me. Either Upwork is refusing to tell the client why they can't hire Wallace as a freelancer, OR they're telling the client they need to hire him as an employee. They can't really both be true! I don't know who's lying/confused here (maybe the client's HR dept is lying to Wallace's contact at the client, maybe the client is lying to Wallace, maybe Wallace is just confused), but it seems pretty clear that Upwork is angling for the "payroll service" upsell, and was telling the client very clearly that they need to hire Wallace. (That's not the story they told Wallace, but it doesn't seem like they really had Wallace's best interests at heart here, as they had a wide number of options available to them to fix this.) And: "So @Upwork is insisting the marketing company make me an employee" Yeah, pretty sure that's a legal requirement there buddy. And yes, I understand that both you and the client would like to circumvent it, but that's the point of labour laws; they only apply in cases where people wanted to do something they ban. Minimum wage laws have no impact on the engineer making $120k a year; they impact (for good or ill) the immigrant willing to work for $5/hour. Laws requiring firms to treat people working full time workers as employees were passed explicitly to cover the people who are happy to work full time as contractors.

joeax 8y ago
This all seems like the fault of the marketing company forcing the OP to go through Upwork in the first place. But Upwork should be up-front about this from day 1.

sheeshkebab 8y ago

This looks to be a typical problem with staffing body shops, especially those that bench their consultants without pay while having them wait for next gig. IRS and labor agencies look down on that sort of thing. There are similar more vague shops too MBOPartners (Randstad) and others, that have similar issues. Since they control all billing and contracts, they are basically this shady body shop that really needs to have its ass examined thoroughly and periodically by government. Advice to consultants - avoid these places and sign your own contracts direct with customers, and invoice your customers yourself.

dna_polymerase 8y ago

So Upwork actually recognized that this company is completely screwing him and he is mad at Upwork. Great. If the company is hiring him for so many jobs that he is basically a full time employee there they are the arseholes not Upwork. That marketing firm get their shit together, hire him and pay him the money (and the extras) he deserves.

hn17 8y ago

Upwork is partially automated. They probably use market position to manipulate users. I had some bad experience and no communication also. When you register account, Upwork "moderates" your profile and "decides" if you can start to work with clients. They have some kind of automated moderation with percentage pass value. It's not working great. If you aren't using in your resume a lot of words that they think are marketable you will be banned as not being eligible for working with Upwork. They will send you e-mail with misguiding information that you aren't good fit for them in nice words and that you can reapply in the future. Reality is that some bad data processing took place. For many people reading such type of e-mail that they send can be offending (if not depressing in cases when they didn't get what happened). In my case I just added some more keywords and tags because I was almost sure what happened and resubmitted profile. After a couple of hours my account was Up and Working ;) No sorry or any other information from them - not a nice way of starting bussiness with a client.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kemitchell 8y ago

PSA: The Supreme Court of California recently published a key decision on independent contractor versus employee classification, adopting an "ABC" test akin to the one adopted in Massachusetts. http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S222732.PDF http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S222732.PDF > [A] worker is properly considered an independent contractor to whom a wage order does not apply only if the hiring entity establishes: (A) that the worker is free from the control and direction of the hirer in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of such work and in fact; (B) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business; and (C) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed for the hiring entity.