Should companies treat independent freelance writers as their "employees"?

You're just jealous because you don't have the knowledge or skills to operate your own company. That's the source of your obvious hatred for essay site owners.


OK, you need to leave.


Why don't you shut the fu*- up, create your own site, implement all of your brilliant proposals, and then-after 6 months-tell us how successful your company has been thus far?

As someone mentioned above, you really are an 'ignorant tool.' :). Sick days? If you are sick you don't take any projects (and if you have any projects already assigned they will be reassigned if you let the admin know).


They have all the power. Working as an independent contractor they are not controlled in any way, they can work anywhere, however, and whenever they want, they even set their own bids on some websites.

If they don't like the company one day? - they use their power and stop taking projects from them. To show even more power they could take a 100 dissertation and not complete it to bring financial and reputation loss to the company.

I know at least two cases when freelance writers started their own companies and websites to directly compete with the 'parent' companies because the 'parent' companies were giving them direct emails of their clients to communicate. That's how they used their power, but that's how the industry works - writers are in direct competition with the companies (only email is needed in order to establish direct competition). To my knowledge they still have accounts with the 'parent' companies because they couldn't afford the costs of their own advertising and other headaches.


You've just come back from the Moon? The proportion - if it's true - compared to other industries is still very reasonable. Check the average proportion of the American industry - why don't you sign up at WallStreetForum.com or similar to preach your gibberish.



------------

All your posts clearly indicate you have never worked in the private sector. I don't understand why you are wasting the taxpayers money posting nonsense on this forum.

OK, well, since everyone here is apparently really negative and aligned against this idea, there remains the essential question, plus, how to be more positive. you're really dragging me down, having to respond to all of these insults. I'm going to do it just once more, and then stop. I know it's going to just breed a bunch of vituperative reaction from you pit of hissing komodo dragon company owners. to any workers who have enjoyed listening, I will continue to post occasionally, but declare this thread a disaster. all it has drawn is the sniping of these half-retarded, voracious blood-suckers.

hey writers! this is what your bosses think of your rights:

Does anybody have a good image to present 'EPIC FAIL'?

ask company owners about freelancer unionization

• 
  inconceivable1.jpg
  

I was going to start a new thread but found this that nicely sums up the benefits of working as a freelancer. There are probably more.

Wow, what an insipid, dishonest jack.

I didn't say "Read a thesaurus" in response to your RIGHTS, but in response to you offering a meaningless semantic distinction.

Hey, writers! This is what your union leader does: Dishonestly take people out of context even when they were on his side and ask for impossible demands that no company will ever offer.


More ESL garbage. I was interested in your idea and had e-mailed you except that both times the e-mail bounced, the height of unprofessionalism. I only started insulting you after you effectively called me a parasite, with no idea about how my business works or who I deal with. In your world, if businesses don't voluntarily destroy themselves and run themselves into the red to offer impossible and illegal benefits, they are EXACTLY THE SAME as those who pay their workers poverty wages.

Want to be positive? Give us a feasibility report, like I've asked for three times, you dishonest character assassin. Give us the average cost per page, number of writers, average number of completed contracts, etc. it would take to give workers a reasonable CPP and the benefits you're listing. Until you can do that, I'm done with you.

Before I start, please forgive the amount of spelling mistakes I sm going to mske - this stupid iPad has a min of its own.

Editor75 - I am positive I know who you are, despite your attempts to change your writing style. You posted the same trash as centralpark.

For someone who is paid $6-7 per hour, yes, you are being somewhat exploited. However, no company will pay you more than that. You won't find employment outside the circle of companies you currently work for. You know that.

Another thing - you were going on about opening your own company. Why haven't you? Please do so and come back here and tell us that you are paying your writers 90%.

As for the private clients whom you charge $10-15 per hour - several were obtained through unethical means, were provided with poor quality work (except when you outsourced it) and hen they rightfully demanded full/partisl refunds, were not even given the courtesy of a reply.

Get off your high horse before you fall off.

Stop posting as your posts are senseless and do nothing other thsn expose your
1) utter lack of business sense
2) your complete ignorance of the inner workings of companies
3) your inability to construct a semi-coherent argument
4) your truly envious nature
5) your highly unlikeabke personality

Now - you are ignorantly assuming that when comlsnies charge $10 per page, that is heat actually goes into their account. No - we pay payment processing fees. I assume you know your way around the Internet - check the fees, please. You are further very ignorantly arguing that we have no overheads

1) server fees (many of us tske out dedicated servers)
2) Running IT costs
3) educated admin wages (I tried the outsourcing $400 per month route fir s couple or so months - absolute disaster). Many of us tend to hire educated support staff and managers - people who are actually educated and have the requisite communication skills

4) promotion and marketing - whitehat and not the spam you are so fond of
5) we carry the cost of chargebacks and of fraudulent clients - we do not pass it onto the writers (unless they are directly and inarguably to blame)

6) we carry the cost of transfers and do not pass them onto writers
7) we pay accountants
8) we pay taxes

Believe it or not, we have overheads. You eould nit know anything about that because you are clueless.

How much do our writers get paid:
First level writers (trial basis) - 1/3 of our intake
Top level writers - 60%
all in-between 40-50%

Major pointed something out here which we will implement - no bonuses and will simply tack on the bonuses to the cpp paid out.

Now, you have no notion of the difference between a freelancer and a full time exclusive employee. Furthermore, you obviously don't get the reason why many jobs are outsourced to India - it is because you are not entitled to the same benefits :)

For a freelancer to demand
1) a company car
2) overtime
3) paid vacations
4) healthcare
And a host of other ludicrous suggestions, is nothing short of madness. Not only does it fly in the face of logic but is completely unsupported by any legals or ethical system known to the civilized world.

You are completely clueless and you know it.

If you are so damn proud of your 'proposal,' why not use your REAL forum handle?! Stand up for what you believe in ...

And, yes, we do know who you are :)

Think about that before yiu go about libelling all company owners. They might not want you on their books :)

Yes ... you have avoided the use of your fav words but 'the song remains the same.'

There is not a person here who is on your side - not even the ones you count as 'friends' - but they don't know who you are, do they?

Save whatever pride you've left (hardly any) and go away.

Yes - I know you think that you can come back at me with lies, centralpark. You should know better, though. We let it slide once - we won't a second time.

Same idiot?

https://essayscam.org/forum/wc/native-writers-esl-1260/#msg20860

The only part of your post I disagree with.


I don't think he knows it at all; he seems genuinely clueless about being clueless. Thank you for the list & comments over there, BTW...I checked out that site for the first time after reading this thread on here.

Ditto.

You're right :) My mistake.

As for the other thing - it's the truth and I am sick and tired of the scammers here. They have no right to pick up customers. Plus, it's high time customers know who to trust on this board.

+ Rusty(whatever) might be another possibility (?); it's a long shot, but he got similar ideas in the past when you look at his profile and read some messages.

Yes - there are three possible suspects/idiots.

Serious question - is there any `good' argument for allowing those proxy-IP companies to remain in operation?

I have seen no independent evidence that they offer a bad or fraudulent product?

From what I've seen thus far, Editor is stupidly and stubbornly insisting on the impossible, but plenty of smart and capable people have done that.

clue me in-- how can we ensure that writers, industry-wide, be treated to a minimum, set standard of benefits? I'm not even arguing about what these benefits should be yet, specifically. I gave some hypothetical examples, and everyone jumped on them. health insurance may come later, but we have to start with little stuff, like bonuses and paid vacations. I'm asking you for ideas, and your response is to call me clueless, and shoot down all my ideas without adding anything. you have asked me for logistics, and I have given you my perspective on possible cuts/numbers. maybe I am coming from outside of your industry-- and what's wrong with that? I know the basics, and I know they're lopsided.

I know, and you said as much. So what you should have done is BACKED OFF, not accused everyone else of being parasites feeding off of the working man because they wouldn't adopt proposals you couldn't defend.

"Little stuff" like bonuses and paid vacations IS NOT LITTLE STUFF. Even those things LEGALLY require different ways of treating and classifying your employees and are highly unlikely. The only thing that makes sense is a bonus, maybe a flat bonus or maybe a percentile one or maybe a sweepsstake or something, for getting a positive feedback off an essay, or some other bonus program.

What's WRONG with it is that you're making a proposal that you have no idea if it's even possible. For the fourth time: Do a feasibility report. Look at the industry a little, send WRT, WB, Freelance Writer, any other trustworthy people an e-mail and ask them what they'd be willing to share about their sharing ratios, average CPPs, average workflow, etc. Take that into account and make a feasibility report. If you find a way that it's possible for a company to provide their employees a reasonable CPP (anything above $8 a page minimum, $15 average, say) and still offer benefits, then you'll know that having a potential union demand that isn't a bad idea, and you can forward the info to WRT and others who I am sure would LOVE to adopt it as a practice if it were really legally and economically viable.

You have given us "perspectives" on possible cuts and numbers, Editor. NOT an actual report. You can't demand that writers get X% and management get Y% without actually DOING THE WORK to show how much money would be coming in, how much work management would be doing for how much pay, if that's remotely like the pay that management could get working somewhere else, if you're assuming that management still writes papers and only does a few extra management tasks, etc. You'd need to show that the issues that everyone here cites about overhead costs, both scale-invariant and scale-variant, are not a problem. You've said NOTHING that's actually helpful or concrete.

People who want to form a union typically know something about their industry...

I was on board with the idea until you got insane. To reiterate for the nth time: If you could find a way to secure benefits for writers, that'd be awesome. But you're not going to. Even if you would, giving paid vacations to writers paid $3 per page doesn't make them less exploited. Focus on raising CPPs for writers and eliminating things like fines first.

Working as an independent freelance writer YOU SET YOUR OWN standards. You want to work for $3 per page? Fine, bid $3 per page. You want to raise your standards and work for $50 per page? Fine, bid $50 per page or take only projects (either privately and/or from companies) that pay $50 per page and live like a king.

When a plumber comes to fix your toilet twice a year, do you offer to give him any benefits other than the quoted amount for the project (and a cup of coffee maybe)? And if one day you think his quote is too much - would he tell you that 'Plumbers have industry-wide standards and I won't replace your gasket for less than $X.'?

It's as simple as that. And you are still clueless.

I neglected to mention that the idea of one uniform set of standards is INSANE.

I'm a writer with about ten years of experience and an undergraduate degree from a prestigious university. I expect to get a certain amount of pay/benefits, say we call it X. A high school or college dropout with five years of writing experience should get, say, .6-.8X. A Ph. D should get 1.7-2X. I'm not going to be paid the same and accept the same benefits as someone with half of my experience, and I wouldn't ask to be paid the same as someone with double my experience.

Exactly; that's why you only work for the amount that satisfies YOU as an independent contractor. If the amount doesn't satisfy you, you don't work.

If someone wants to be paid based on 'experience' or even 'a degree' they should look for a brick and mortar job.

Are you full-blown retarded? FREELANCE WRITERS ARE NOT LEGALLY ELIGIBLE FOR BENEFITS! Now, just shut up already and crawl back under your rock in India.

(Just because you fraudulently put "earth" as your location does not prevent me from immediately identifying your Indian-English habits.)

Thanks, I need emails from this dope asking abour my work like I need a hole in the head. I'd rather answer the door for Jehovas Witnesses. (Last time was in 1995...I let them in, sat them down, and then announced that I wanted to introduce them to the benefits of atheism. They suddenly decided they didn't like people who proselytize, took off in a huff, and never returned.)


Again, who's "we"? You're not even a part of this industry in any meanigful way (if at all) and nobody here but you thinks there's even any possible issue because we all understand the fundamental criteria distinguishing independent contractors from employees. You never answered the question about what you actually do for a fulltime living, either.

That having been said, there is a minimum wage. Many writers in this industry could use representation protecting them from exploitation.

Not in the freelance/contract writing industry. There's no 'wage' in the freelance industry because all projects are based on per-page/per-project basis.

No, my point was that, while in all jobs there are negotiations, there are some legal limitations. A union could easily push for a bare minimum CPP and also push for higher CPPs in general. What is impossible is trying to push for benefits.

Any 'minimum' would be good ONLY for uneducated ESL writers from 3rd world countries because for them a 'minimum' would still be good money. Real writers (native English speakers living in the US/UK/Canada/Australia) would not be happy about that, I guess.

In result, customers would be doomed to receive garbage/plagiarized essays and qualified writers would have to compete with ESL writers from 3rd world countries.

If you think it's great, then go for it ;).

Amons-- that's what I'm talking about-- little stuff, at first, that people can agree on (as writers, not owners-- I distrust everything the owners say, and have now started discounting their insults and threats).

CPP standard minimum
bonuses based on customer feedback/loyalty
3rd party review on charge-backs
paid revisions
royalties programs

writers: are you really satisfied with what you're getting, based on what you're doing?

Writers should be guaranteed a minimum percentage of fees charged by a company (something which WB has often emphasised).
Writers should not be fined
Writers should not be required to undertake endless revisions
Writers should be paid their agreed-upon dues
Writers, most emphatically, should not accept $3-6 per page rates

Unionisation will not ever happen as there is no legal basis or precedence for an international freelance writers' union.

The exploitation and abuse of writers is rampant in this industry. The exploitation and abuse will continue. Why? Because of the type of 'writers' who have entered the industry

1) many are literally uneducated
2) many do not understand the basic rules governing academic research and writing
3) many have no business writing in English.
In other words, they have no business or place in this industry. The only companies which hire them are those known for the blatant exploitation of writers - EW and AR. The point is that many writers are complicit in their own exploitation:

Were they forced to accept projects at $3 CPPs?
Were they forced to work for either AR or EW?
Were they forced to work for companies which adhere to fining policies which are tantamount to theft?

No.

So ... how can we even discuss the protection of writers who knowingly participate in their own exploitation?

The protection of writers would necessitate their banding together and taking a stand against companies which underpay, exploit and fine. Freelance writers won't ever do that. Had they any such intentions, they would have stopped working for these companies eons ago. They haven't and they won't.

For many, especially the unqualified lot, $3-6 per page is nothing to scoff at. For indian/Pakistani etc writers, this is GOOD money.

Don't blame the companies alone as the writers are equally guilty ...

No, but no one "forces" someone to work in a coal mine for ten cents a day either, yet that's also exploitative. Many of these ESL writers do not have options that are high paying. Protecting them would be a wonderful way to helping them support their families.

Some don't belong in the industry, but some do, IMHO.


Let's say that there was a minimum split and a minimum CPP of, say, $7. EW/AR would then have no incentive to hire people who are undereducated or bad writers. EW/AR get an advantage because they can hire garbage writers who are unprotected from their exploitation then rip them off. A good union could also have standards for membership.


I agree, but without the existence of some kind of professional organization to protect writers, it's difficult to anticipate how many would scab.

They have no business knowingly misrepresenting their skills to American customers. Plight is no excuse for fraud.


Legitimate, educated, proficient writers in the English language do not need "protection." Writers who do not earn/deserve their keep have no business being in the industry, anyway. If a writer is not good enough to make his/her employer worry about losing him/her, then he/she needs to find another line of work.

No, I agree, but there are plenty of people, ESL and otherwise, just entering the industry who could be taken advantage of who have plenty of wonderful potential.

Exactly.

I agree-- they don't need protection; they need

collectivization---> organization -----> power

legitimate, educated, proficient writers in the English language need power: the power to withhold work collectively in order to combat an inherently unfair system, in which the lion's share of the profits go to the owner.

writers: what's the difference between being content and being satisfied?

Meaningless semantics.

You continue to lump together, despite the difference experience of WRITERS here telling you otherwise, blatantly exploitative companies and companies that have minimum CPPs, don't charge fines, and have a very fair split.

WRONG, ignoramus. The "power" of such writers is inherent in their abilities! Please, please, PLEASE go away.

I suppose I deserve being quoted partially and out of context, since I have done it to others.

since this is a new page, let me remind everyone that legitimate, educated, proficient writers need the power to withhold work collectively, after they have organized into a position of collective bargaining with the owners re: minimum industry standards for writers. this is not individualistic or inherent.

as to the exact minimum industry standards, this is what appears to be the main point of contention.


yes; the latter entity in your comparison is a myth.

I quoted you PERFECTLY in context.


F off, ya clueless, idiotic liar. I've had just about enough of your bulls-i*. Leave, or things will get very ugly for you in a very public fashion.

First, let at least the majority of wannabe writers start to meet the minimum 'industry standards.' I don't have the exact numbers but I can reasonably assume out of 100 applicants 70 can be safely ignored because those 'writers' aren't capable of writing a coherent sentence in English.

Second, you've already been told that there are two groups of owners: legitimate and fraudulent. There are twice as many fraudulent owners as legitimate ones. Legitimate writers do not work for fraudulent companies because they are educated enough not to wait months for payments and they are educated enough not to work for $4 per page. 99% of all complaints posted here or on similar forums are made by illegitimate (ESL) writers working for illegitimate companies (because only such companies can work with such writers).

You need to educate yourself about the industry first because so far you've just wasted everybody's time with your moronic statements and questions. If you want to stick to your 'plans' you need to go back to 3rd world countries and try to 'protect' ESL writers from there. Nobody needs you in English-speaking countries.

BINGO!

Editor75: read and comprehend.

Breaking News:
Marxism proved a failed ideology which did nothing but impoverish, dehumanise, marginalise, oppress and terrorise the workers it supposedly sought to empower.

Grow up.

For the last blooming time
1) none are against fair pay
2) the educated and professionals writers (who happen to actually speak the language they are being paid to write in) do not need unions to advance their interest. The legits count them as their true assets and treat them well

3) the illiterati are dispensable. When they satisfy the minimum requirements of the job, then they can come here and debate their dues.
4) those who work for EW and AR need to understand that they willingly resigned any rights when they signed up with these outfits. They chose to ignore the scam warnings; they willingly picked up orders which were priced at $3-6; they knowingly signed up with companies which lied about their origins, their ownership, etc; they agreed to the fine structure,etc.

Do I need remind yiu that WB has spent years warning writers? Had you just listened instead of at taking her at every turn, you would not be in this position.

I am against the minimum CPP but all for a minimum percentage. All the legits pay between 40-50%.

Your proposal is a joke - 90%?! we are not running charities for the illiterati and the ignoramuses of the world.

Paid vacation?
Overtime?
Percentage of royalties (we are not publishing houses and you aren't J.K. Rowling, by the way
Healthcare

You uninformed person - even established authors/bestselling authors, do not get what you are proposing.

Do you have a feasibility study to back up your la-la land proposal?

Please stop posting.

Your proposals have no basis in
Business law
Fair employment law
Common sense
Business logic

Instead of going on and on about this, do what I asked of you when you were the 'other poster' - establish your own site and put your ludicrous and laughable plans to the test. Succeed and then we may follow suite. Remember:

90%
paid vacations
Healthcare plans
Overtime
Company car
Paid sick leave
Royalties

While at it, what about paid maternity leave?

I have a question: why haven't you formed your company yet? You claimed that ...

Have you forwarded your list of demands to
EW
AR
RWC

Pls do :)

Stick to the Indian market pls. None in the wider market will 'avail' themselves of yiur services :)