Lashonda makes a good point and she is correct - If this lawsuit goes through CrowdFlower will be forced to start paying people minimum wage. Mturk will be forced to put in restrictions based on pay per minute standards set forth by the courts. Supposedly CrowdFlower has a workforce of close to 4 million people residing in the United States. Unfortunately, many of these people work full time online along with their assisted living and disability checks and still can't make ends meet at the end of the day. On friday, August 2nd at 2pm I will be in San Francisco by myself at the courthouse awaiting the verdict whether or not this will be a certified class action. This means that CrowdFlower will have to post messages on all of their websites and inform all of their employees that a lawsuit has been filed against them and to call Mark Potashnick at 3149979150 ext 2 - to join the lawsuit. If you'd like to join in on the fight and think you deserve to make minimum wage too please Call my attorney Mark Potashnick - 3149979150 ext 2 - And to the gentleperson who said that I'm lazy and that I'm trying to make a quick buck. I've turned down two settlement offers. This isn't about me. It's about setting a precedent that protects online workers rights and their ability to earn a minimum wage. Before passing judgement please remember that there are 4 million people involved in this not just the 200 that use mturk forum
Hopefully, if this lawsuit is successful, CrowdFlower will not only pay everyone minimum wage, but just like a "real employer", force everyone to submit to an application process, pick and choose who gets to work for it, force the people it hired to clock in from 9 to 5, work according to deadlines and fire those who don't complete work on time. After all, it's only fair, no? You want a company to pay you "real job wages", so presumably, you would have no problems with CF and other mturk companies treating this like a real job. You would have no problems with any of them saying, "Sorry, we're going to limit who can work for us now. We're only going to accept 500 workers from here on out. Submit a job application and we'll let you know if we accept you. BTW, if you're accepted, you have to work for us M-F, 9 to 5, sometimes holidays and weekends, no exceptions. You log into our website exactly at 9 am and log out at 5pm. If you at any time log in late or early, you're docked pay. And if you can't complete X amount of hits a day, you're fired." You see, the people who cry the most about "deserving" a minimum wage don't get it. The reason why the concepts of wage and salary don't apply to mturk is that mturk is not a "real job." It's just not. A real job, you have to go through an application process. A real job, you can't pick and choose which types of jobs you have to do-- you have to do exactly what you're assigned or face consequences. You have to answer to supervisors. You have to work when the employee tells you to, even when you don't feel like it. You have to come in during certain hours. And 95% of the time, you have to do a multitude of tasks besides what your job description says. I think that people who keep talking about how they deserve minimum wage fro mturk and the like have either never worked a real job a day in their lives or want to have their cake and eat it, too. In other words, they want to be able to get paid the same as they would in a real job, but not have to deal with the realities and consequences of what a real job would entail-- the having to clock in, the being forced to do assignments that they don't want, the application process, etc. But the joke's on them. Keep pushing demands for "minimum wage" from requesters and see where that will get you. If you think for a second that if CF were to be forced to pay minimum wage, you'll be able to carry on as before, think again. That "4 million workforce" you claim will be whittled down to 500, and there will be restrictions. Crowd Source is a great example of what happens when a requester pays very well. Turkers have to go through a gauntlet to access its high paying hits (application, testing, orientation), and only a few people at a time are allowed entry. You can also lose access to those hits if you don't maintain consistent quality. So yes, essentially, you can get "fired" from being a writer for CS. Are you prepared to face all that should CF pay minimum wage?
I personally hope this lawsuit gets laughed out of court, it's pointless. IMHO. I've had contact with this guy for a few days, contact he initiated. I know about the suit, I'd tell you exactly what I'd think but you certainly wouldn't like it. 12:05am Christopher Otey It has nothing to do with me - it's about the 4 million people they pay 2 - 3 hr on average or any many causes dont pay them at all - a lot of the people in the suit don't work on mturk - mturk only has 250,000 of the 4 million Are you one of the employers making millions off of our labor??? i don't know about you but i've done 101,000 hits and have earned $10,000 and counting i don't work for fun 12:33am Christopher Otey I'm sorry if i came off strong i was taking some heat earlier on mturk forum I hope you have a good night Today 11:05am Musical_life I am on that forum and I agree with them. This lawsuit you have going on is rather stupid. 1:05pm Christopher Otey you must be rich then and not realize that there are so many people that work online for less than min wage and live in the US - Wells Fargo has 150,000 employees - we're talking 4,000,000. FLSA was made for a reason - It's ok if you think it's stupid - Hopefully the judge that Obama appointed in January won't. Guess we'll find out in 24 hours 1:17pm Musical_life For your information I'm on SSI, what do you think is going to happen if your lawsuit goes through? Answer: Those on it will get penalised the same way that those on minimum wage would! I turk because I don't get penalised for working! Sure, it may only be a few dollars a day but not having the government bother me for that money is worth it!!!! 1:23pm Musical_life I was having to watch just how much money I made per month at minimum wage (7.25 an hour in IN) because if I made over $85 in a single _month_ the government went after me. I quit my safe and secure job for turking after 8 years because the pressure got to much. Now you're doing something so bloody stupid as to jeopardize that? You're an idiot!
If this were to happen and CrowdFlower did decide to just hire full time employees I don't even think most them would be in the US. Our minimum wage is too high. Plus many people don't do this full time. What other job is going to let you make an extra $300 a month only working 1-2 hours in the evening while taking breaks to make the family dinner or help a kid with homework. (Note: I don't do this since, but this is how I imagine some other turkers working. So full disclosure that could just be totally made up and no one does that.) A lot of those university studies would either go back to paying college students OR go back to making it a requirement in lower level courses that they participate in "X" amount of studies to pass the course they are in. I had that in my lower level psych classes which was never fun.
More convo from the idiot: I don't get govt assistance - I work full time on mturk and make $750 a month - i just moved from astoria to portland because I couldn't afford the $800/month rent. If I was making min wage i'd still be living in Astoria in my apartment and not in a tent in the back of my moms house - homeless. I'm not lazy and I'm not stupid. I majored in Business and Sociology. This isn't about me and you Musical_life. There are 3,999,998 other people. Most of them are like me not you working their ass off trying not to take anything from the govt and the other people that pay into the system. They're trying to be independent even if it means not having a lot of time for family and having to work a lot of hours to make it. It's called pride not taking a handout but it comes with consequences - like for me for example. I had to develop thick skin for people like you. People that don't do their research and don't read all the facts in the case. People that like to follow and not lead. I know you're depressed. I know you fear that they will take your $$ from you. But they won't. It's gonna happen regardless. The wheels are already in motion. And it's a good thing. $8.50 an hour is better than $2 or $3. And if you don't agree than...... 1:35pm Christopher Otey i meant then....... sorry - i'm trying to do 5 things at once 1:38pm Musical_life The government is most likely going to find a way to screw me over if you are taken seriously, so sorry if I feel like it's _not_ a good thing because honestly it isn't and you haven't considered that. I wanted to work the stock market. Government: Well you can but we'll get you in a catch-22 if you make too much. (Great...) I want to get lasik. Government: You can't do that either, it's a cosmetic procedure. (****!!!!) So please, actually go do your own homework instead of accusing me of not doing mine. You want CS work to have minimum wage? Watch it backfire on you and take everyone else with you.
If you are only doing surveys all day long, then I would agree with you. But there is other sort of work here - writing assignments, compiling information for directories on restaurants, schools and the like... it is disingenuous to compare all of Turk to the public research firms that (used to) hang out in malls. Quite a bit of Turk is distributed office work that someone would have been doing as a paid hourly job in the recent past. End of quote - However does Crowdflower put up HITs like that? I avoid CF so I don't know. Crowdflower is the one in the center here. And there are folks who make good money doing the transcription HITs. They are picky about the one they do and careful but they manage.