Elevating our workplace with a new minimum rate

Mujahid B · Nov 12, 2014 10:17:14 PM

Its good news for Window Cleaners. Now you may consider asking them to do Copy and Paste work for you using your PC and internet connection.

For $1 they may clean your PC screen too as an ADD-ON value with Glint

Besides they will be talking in the same accent as you do. An opportunity lost for some is an opportunity made for others.

Cathleen Claire S · Nov 15, 2014 12:02:19 AM

Not really...

Even that is not a skilled set task. Even if I am on a contractor's shoes. I think $3 rate is reasonable.

You cannot even call it increase. It is just the inflation of money.

How long would a $3 take you nowadays for food consumption alone? Would you rather suggest eating only minimal or eating like trash? Not even have to spend nicely, like buying something at StarBucks or KFC or McDonalds?

Give the humanity some priviledge..

No, it do not think this is stupid.

LaToya P · Nov 19, 2014 06:57:47 AM

I guess you will just have to use the fixed rate option to hire people then. And that can get even murkier than hourly. There are very easy ways to tell if you are hiring someone who is worth the money. Check their feedback score and check their portfolio. You can also check how many hours they have logged on jobs and you can see how many jobs they've had. Going even further, you can ask for a free test of the kind of work you want done to see if they do indeed have the skills for the job. I would advice you to tell them to watermark the test so that you are not seen as trying to get free work done. If you can't tell from those things if you are hiring someone worth the money, then the problem is not the new system. These are all common sense approaches to finding the write contractor. You are just making this seem more difficute than it is. I for one, applaud the new minimum hourly rate. It stops future clients from trying to pay you as little as possible for quality work. I've seen some clients on here have the nerve to offer 25 cents an hour for things like coding whole web sites or designing entire blogs. Give me a break, that is just downright wrong and cheap in so many ways. Now with the new minimum, it will weed out the ones unwilling to pay people what they are worth and it will help contractors find employers who are serious about actually paying someone for their time and effort. So bravo Odesk. I've been suggesting this for years and not it has come to be. Pure awesome in my book.

Mark S · Sep 22, 2015 02:19:26 AM

Expecting someone to build you a website for $.25 per hour is absurd, and everyone knows it. But nobody is forced to taker the job either. And really, it would come out horribly at that rate. No REAL developer would take the work. That is a free and open marketplace and it works perfectly. It's much like an auction. You are worth EXACTLY what someone is willing to pay. And what a freelancer is willing to work for is also a component of that. If the employer desires a rate of lets say $2, but he/she only receives very medicore or non-qualified applicants, then he/she realizes the rate being asked is just too low. They won't accept. But is someone wants to do the work at that rate, why should ANYONE ever be allowed to interfere with the free flow of business negotiations?

This is how ALL beuisness transacts around the world. Everything is a negotiation. Buyers want things at the lowest rate. Sellers want to get the most for what they are offering. They meet somewhere in the middle where they can both accept. Wherever they land.. THAT is the correct price. That is the correct price literally of everything. Any other outside tinkering is just messing with the free flow of commerce.

Your intentions are good. But you fail to understand basic supply and demand theory of economics.

Ray C · Sep 19, 2015 03:48:16 AM

Antonio T: I think you are a completely insensitive person who doesn't care about anything except his own profits. Simple, redundant jobs are grueling, tedious, mind deadening and often lead to repetitive motion syndrome. But the main issue is that you are undermining the value of other peoples lives. You want slaves.

They may be doing an unskilled job but you're paying them so little that they must spend their whole lives doing that dismal job just to make ends meet and with no time left in the day to better themselves. What kind of a person are you to expect people to work for 1 dollar an hour? I would say a very selfish and greedy person who cares not about his fellow man or common decency. You probably think I'm crazy to care about other people less fortunate than me. But the mentality of someone like you is inconcievable to me. How do you sleep at night. How can you be happy in your life knowing that you are contributing to the misery and poverty of others. The only reason anyone works for you is because they are desperate! So to take advantage of that is truely despicable. That is my opinion and i really don't care to hear your rebuttal. It makes me very sad to know people like you exist.

Antonio T · Aug 25, 2014 02:48:00 PM

The contractors on this site are ADULTS and have the mental capacity to CHOOSE which projects they want to bid on and which ones they don't. If they don't want to work for .50/hr, THEY DON'T HAVE TO ** BID ON THE PROJECT!!!! There are some providers who live in AWFUL conditions and $1/hr is a LOT of money for them. Some people can't find work in their country due to lack of jobs, physical limitations, etc. This open work marketplace gives them the opportunity to make something versus nothing....and starving to death. There are providers who have BEGGED me for any project I had because they had NO FOOD. They have said, "Dear sir, I am in desperate need of work and will work for you doing any project for .50/hr, .75 or $1/hr." MANY times I've given people projects that I didn't even need completed at that time...just to help them out of tough situations. Odesk - this is a BAD idea: "Forcing" ME to pay more for the same jobs I hired for at a lower amount is not only an imperfect solution, it's s stupid solution. This really seems like a lame ploy for odesk execs to stuff more money in their pockets. * Removed by admin

Cathleen Claire S · Nov 15, 2014 12:20:26 AM

Give them the REAL MONEY please...Never pay these DESPERATE people as you described the job just so they are asking for it. Thereby, doing something, I don't know, if that was even a quality work?

If you really feel sorry for them, this is the place for having real job. Not real alms.

It would be really unfair for someone like me who strive my way out. But to bargain my "skills and time" at a VERY LOW & HIDEOUS PRICE, is too **bleep**.

Standards are standards. It is touching to know that oDesk now has this new standard set! Bravo!

Ray C · Sep 19, 2015 04:10:46 AM

If you didn't need the work done why didn't you just give them the money why do you make them do a job you don't need if you are such humanitarian. Who asks people to work to recieve charity it's like a slap in the face along with your generosity. It's like me saying to a beggar asking for spare change, "Sure i'll give you some spare change if i can kick you in the a** for it.

Jason R · Aug 25, 2014 02:48:14 PM

This is just an example situation of one of my workers. Again, I'm not really effected by this change, but I dont like it because the whole purpose of this business is supply and demand. I went looking for a VA one day. I gave her a trial run. I paid her $1 an hour, and told her to spend 100 hours just learning. She did and I kept her working $1.50 an hour now. This is not great money but from what i gather in this life, who really ever makes enough money. Everybody wants more. -My worker has told me several times how important this job is to her -My worker prior to me randomly selecting her (and she was a 5 star worker) was hustling up article writing gigs on an inconsistent bases and still unable to get any consistent work after 1.5 years on the site. - I have been told this job has been life changing for her. She is a good worker, and I like her, but I would dump her in a heartbeat if I had to pay her $3 an hour. Not only do i feel she wouldn't be worth it (she may disagree) but she gets a flexible job, works from home, probably makes more than a day job would pay per hour and she doesn't have to leave her home, she gets to watch and spend time with her 4 kids and in that situation its actually probably impossible for her to ever work outside the house. So, this change in policy will not just hurt employers, but workers who are willing to take a job at a freelancer site that is suppose to be setup in a supply and demand fashion. If you had this $3 implemented prior to me hiring her, she would have never gotten a full time job.

Brian E · Jul 22, 2015 07:42:28 PM

Sorry being a necro on a post but reading through this was one of the sickest things I've ever done. People referring to contractors as "their worker" and "I own them" and more. This has pretty much just been a discussion in modern-day slave owners discussing why they can't own their slaves anymore, in effect.