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brenescasells
Community Member

I will pay you $2/hour.

So I have been seeing and flaging these posters basically solicilting slave labor.  Member since Jul 26, 2011. I tihnk it is everybodies responsibilty to flag and report. Good luck finding work everyone.

28 REPLIES 28
mwiggenhorn
Community Member

You are right.  These jobs violate the Terms of Service, which sets a $3 hourly or $5 fixed rate minimum. We all need to flag these terrible clients.

prestonhunter
Community Member

Carlos:

What exactly are you seeing?

The Upwork client-side user interface doesn't actually allow a client to hire freelancers (for new client/freelancer relationships) at any rate below $3.00/hour.

 

Read:

Minimum Hourly Rates

 

Screen Shot 2019-05-14 at 3.33.38 PM.png


Preston H wrote:

What exactly are you seeing?

The Upwork client-side user interface doesn't actually allow a client to hire freelancers (for new client/freelancer relationships) at any rate below $3.00/hour.

 


It's easy to hire below this rate; all a client has to do is post a fixed price project and state that the pay is $2/hour. Or, even less (I saw one that worked out to $1.50/hour).

re: "It's easy to hire below this rate; all a client has to do is post a fixed price project and state that the pay is $2/hour. Or, even less (I saw one that worked out to $1.50/hour)."

 

Christine:

If you say you have seen something like this, I believe you.

 

But obviously it doesn't make any sense for any freelancer to get involved in a contract which mixes elements of fixed-price contracts and hourly contracts. I think that never ends well for the freelancer.

 

A fixed-price contract is set up to pay for a specific deliverable.

So if the project only takes me 5 minutes to complete, then maybe I end up making $100 / hour. If the task takes me 10 hours, then maybe I end up making a very low hourly rate. But fixed-price contracts are for deliverables, not for time worked.


Preston H wrote:

re: "It's easy to hire below this rate; all a client has to do is post a fixed price project and state that the pay is $2/hour. Or, even less (I saw one that worked out to $1.50/hour)."

 

Christine:

If you say you have seen something like this, I believe you.

 

But obviously it doesn't make any sense for any freelancer to get involved in a contract which mixes elements of fixed-price contracts and hourly contracts. I think that never ends well for the freelancer.

 

A fixed-price contract is set up to pay for a specific deliverable.

So if the project only takes me 5 minutes to complete, then maybe I end up making $100 / hour. If the task takes me 10 hours, then maybe I end up making a very low hourly rate. But fixed-price contracts are for deliverables, not for time worked.


Hey, you don't need to convince me - I'm not the one who's bidding on this dodgy stuff. But yes, I see these types of jobs at least two or three times a week. (I bid on lots of Word and PowerPoint projects, so I often get admin-type jobs in my news feed - people in this category are often willing to work for extremely low wages.) The most outrageous RFPs (which I posted about in a thread a few months ago) are from clients who try to hire full-time secretaries or assistants for an hourly pay rate that's below the legal minimum wage in their countries. There was a project posted by a client in Ontario, Canada which stated, "We'd like you to come to our office and work 40 hours per week on an ongoing basis; the pay is $300/month." So they were offering to pay about $1.50/hour in a place where the legal minimum wage is $14/hour for full-time employees. I always report such projects to Upwork, but really, these people should be reported to the authorities. 

Before decrying $2 an hour as "slave labor" go and look up average minimum hourly wages across the globe's countries. You will be shocked how many average under $1 let alone under $2 (note all converted to USD for point of comparison). $2 is somewhat arbitrary and checking off that amount as slave labor but the actual $3 UW minimum as perfectly acceptable, makes the argument specious. Your point of view on the offered amount will be based entirely on where you live. If you are going to have a global marketplace and let everyone compete within a single pot then have to be prepared to see rates that are offensive in your region but possibly a godsend in others. 

 

The answer here is to keep scrolling or use the filters. There is no gun to your head forcing you to work for any specific rate. Otherwise, if you are going to look at the world's job postings, expect to see amounts that don't fit your living situation. 


Scott B wrote:

Before decrying $2 an hour as "slave labor" go and look up average minimum hourly wages across the globe's countries. You will be shocked how many average under $1 let alone under $2 (note all converted to USD for point of comparison). $2 is somewhat arbitrary and checking off that amount as slave labor but the actual $3 UW minimum as perfectly acceptable, makes the argument specious. Your point of view on the offered amount will be based entirely on where you live. If you are going to have a global marketplace and let everyone compete within a single pot then have to be prepared to see rates that are offensive in your region but possibly a godsend in others. 

 

The answer here is to keep scrolling or use the filters. There is no gun to your head forcing you to work for any specific rate. Otherwise, if you are going to look at the world's job postings, expect to see amounts that don't fit your living situation. 



All right. So the clients from rich countries are aware that they are looking for people they can easily exploit. Fine, to some people, this is not a problem. Well, not everybody thinks along this path. If I were in a "wealthy" country, and were to hire someone from a "not so wealthy" country, I would be glad to be making some freelancer feel good about making more money than he or she usually does. It would not hurt my finances. I really think adjusting what I pay him or her just to deprive him from a little happiness is evil. 


Luce N wrote:

Scott B wrote:

Before decrying $2 an hour as "slave labor" go and look up average minimum hourly wages across the globe's countries. You will be shocked how many average under $1 let alone under $2 (note all converted to USD for point of comparison). $2 is somewhat arbitrary and checking off that amount as slave labor but the actual $3 UW minimum as perfectly acceptable, makes the argument specious. Your point of view on the offered amount will be based entirely on where you live. If you are going to have a global marketplace and let everyone compete within a single pot then have to be prepared to see rates that are offensive in your region but possibly a godsend in others. 

 

The answer here is to keep scrolling or use the filters. There is no gun to your head forcing you to work for any specific rate. Otherwise, if you are going to look at the world's job postings, expect to see amounts that don't fit your living situation. 



All right. So the clients from rich countries are aware that they are looking for people they can easily exploit. Fine, to some people, this is not a problem. Well, not everybody thinks along this path. If I were in a "wealthy" country, and were to hire someone from a "not so wealthy" country, I would be glad to be making some freelancer feel good about making more money than he or she usually does. It would not hurt my finances. I really think adjusting what I pay him or her just to deprive him from a little happiness is evil. 


Paying someone what amounts to the going rate in their economy is not, by definition, exploitative. If a US start-up company has no capital to speak of, cannot afford to pay US rates but can find a competent FL in a developing nation who will happily do the work for a rate they can afford, how is that a bad thing? Enforcing a minimum rate aligned with first-world economies will simply drive clients to hire closer to home or not at all. Instead of helping that poor FL earn more, it would deprive her of the opportunity altogether. Obviously, many companies could afford to spend more and are simply economizing. Again, not categorically exploitative if they are providing good opportunities. 


Luce N wrote:

All right. So the clients from rich countries are aware that they are looking for people they can easily exploit. Fine, to some people, this is not a problem. Well, not everybody thinks along this path. If I were in a "wealthy" country, and were to hire someone from a "not so wealthy" country, I would be glad to be making some freelancer feel good about making more money than he or she usually does. It would not hurt my finances. I really think adjusting what I pay him or her just to deprive him from a little happiness is evil. 

Not really clear what you are saying frankly but let's take this to US only. If someone takes a job in a small town in Mississippi and someone takes the same job in San Francisco, is it the expectation that the wage should be the same? 

If a company based in the US or in the EU hires someone at $3/hour in places where this wage is decent, it's not immoral at first glance. Let's put aside that I don't believe that you can buy a computer and an Internet access if you're paid $3 the hour even in Southern Cheapia and let's keep with the reasoning.

 

If the said company lays off their local staff, or never hire locally because they can hire for $3 an hour in Southern Cheapia, one can say it's a rational business decision. 

 

Sometimes, the company simply cannot afford to operate otherwise because they're not making enough money. This is usually the case with small businesses with limited budgets. But often, it's the big corporations who do that. To them, ach dollar saved this way is a dollar that goes into the pockets of the shareholders instead of the pockets of local workers. Which is seen as a good thing.

 

Is it acceptable? Yes, of course. It's capitalism, the lesser of all the evils we have tried so far.

 

Is it healthy? Yes, on the short-term. On the long-term, maybe not that much. If the people in a country find themselves working two jobs only so they can get by, if the middle class in the country shrinks too much, well a social disaster may happen. People can get angry. Politicians can get elected. Wars can erupt. It happens. It has in the past.

 

 

-----------
"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless


Rene K wrote:

If a company based in the US or in the EU hires someone at $3/hour in places where this wage is decent, it's not immoral at first glance. Let's put aside that I don't believe that you can buy a computer and an Internet access if you're paid $3 the hour even in Southern Cheapia and let's keep with the reasoning.

 

If the said company lays off their local staff, or never hire locally because they can hire for $3 an hour in Southern Cheapia, one can say it's a rational business decision. 

 

Sometimes, the company simply cannot afford to operate otherwise because they're not making enough money. This is usually the case with small businesses with limited budgets. But often, it's the big corporations who do that. To them, ach dollar saved this way is a dollar that goes into the pockets of the shareholders instead of the pockets of local workers. Which is seen as a good thing.

 

Is it acceptable? Yes, of course. It's capitalism, the lesser of all the evils we have tried so far.

 

Is it healthy? Yes, on the short-term. On the long-term, maybe not that much. If the people in a country find themselves working two jobs only so they can get by, if the middle class in the country shrinks too much, well a social disaster may happen. People can get angry. Politicians can get elected. Wars can erupt. It happens. It has in the past.

 

 


Yes. But the way to address it is not by trying to implement a global minimum wage on UW. It needs to be addressed through policy in the corp's home country--in this example, the US--which eliminates incentives (perhaps to the extent of imposing penalties -- tomato, to-mah-to) to move production offshore.

You also have to look at things in terms of purchasing power. In my earlier example you can have someone living in San Francisco making loads more money than someone doing the same job in a small town in Mississippi. However, what that doesn't speak to is purchasing power. The reality is that they each might have the same purchasing power or the small town USA person might have more purchasing power than Silicon Valley Suzy.  Just talking about a dollar amount is fairly meaningless until it's put against the cost of living of the person making it. No matter how someone may try to homogenize the world, the reality is that certain places will always be more desirable to live. For example, places with good weather or where a popular and successful company happens to make its roots, etc. Supply and demand will then dictate a higher cost of living because there is only so much real estate.  This is in turn will require higher salary in order to afford the same things some one else in a less desirable area has to make in order to buy it.

 

Besides the above, I will say again that there is no gun. These are public postings that are available to everyone in the world to see, ignore or jump at. If you don't like it, wait for the next one which has a higher value attached. I am pretty sure there is no UW algo that decides to filter out higher paying jobs to countries that have a smaller hourly wages on average. Those folks can see and bid on any sized job just like anyone else. Sites like this one promote opportunity globally better then any brick and mortar has been able to do. 


Rene K wrote:

If a company based in the US or in the EU hires someone at $3/hour in places where this wage is decent, it's not immoral at first glance. Let's put aside that I don't believe that you can buy a computer and an Internet access if you're paid $3 the hour even in Southern Cheapia and let's keep with the reasoning.

 

If the said company lays off their local staff, or never hire locally because they can hire for $3 an hour in Southern Cheapia, one can say it's a rational business decision. 

 

Sometimes, the company simply cannot afford to operate otherwise because they're not making enough money. This is usually the case with small businesses with limited budgets. But often, it's the big corporations who do that. To them, ach dollar saved this way is a dollar that goes into the pockets of the shareholders instead of the pockets of local workers. Which is seen as a good thing.

 

Is it acceptable? Yes, of course. It's capitalism, the lesser of all the evils we have tried so far.

 

Is it healthy? Yes, on the short-term. On the long-term, maybe not that much. If the people in a country find themselves working two jobs only so they can get by, if the middle class in the country shrinks too much, well a social disaster may happen. People can get angry. Politicians can get elected. Wars can erupt. It happens. It has in the past.



I'll add that another bad side of making sure freelancers in "poor" countries don't get a decent pay is that this encourages people from those countries to want to live in "wealthy" ones.

 

In my opinion, the best way to stop economic migration is to help people make a decent living in their own country. 

re: "In my opinion, the best way to stop economic migration is to help people make a decent living in their own country."

 

Okay. But that isn't Upwork's job.


Preston H wrote:

re: "In my opinion, the best way to stop economic migration is to help people make a decent living in their own country."

 

Okay. But that isn't Upwork's job.


Who said it was Upwork's job? 


Preston H wrote:

re: "In my opinion, the best way to stop economic migration is to help people make a decent living in their own country."

 

Okay. But that isn't Upwork's job.


Why are you so obsessed with Upwork, Preston? 

re: "Why are you so obsessed with Upwork, Preston?"

 

Neurochemical addiction.

 

It's not a secret.


Luce N wrote:

 

I'll add that another bad side of making sure freelancers in "poor" countries don't get a decent pay is that this encourages people from those countries to want to live in "wealthy" ones.

 

In what way are freelancers in poor or otherwise countries being made sure not to get "decent" pay? Exactly who is making sure they cannot and how do you define "decent"?


Scott B wrote:

Luce N wrote:

 

I'll add that another bad side of making sure freelancers in "poor" countries don't get a decent pay is that this encourages people from those countries to want to live in "wealthy" ones.

 

In what way are freelancers in poor or otherwise countries being made sure not to get "decent" pay? Exactly who is making sure they cannot and how do you define "decent"?


To me, a pay is "decent" if it allows you to feel that your hard work has been appreciated and that it was worth the effort you made. If some CLIENT, who could give that feeling of fair, decent reward prefers to ASSUME that a freelancer in one country is worth five/ten/twenty times less than a freelancer in his own country, chances are the freelancer won't get that feeling thet he's being treated fairly, but rather that he's being taken advantage of.  

 

And I repeat, this is how people get the idea that their only chance of getting ahead in life is to move out of their own country, which is seen as a problem by many.


Scott B wrote:

Not really clear what you are saying frankly but let's take this to US only. If someone takes a job in a small town in Mississippi and someone takes the same job in San Francisco, is it the expectation that the wage should be the same? 

I'm just trying to say that there is not an universal way of considering money. Maybe the pleasure of paying someone what you consider to be a fair price not only from your point of view but also from his/her point of view is something you have never experienced. 

I would expect the cost of living in small town Mississipi and San Francisco not to be that different. For instance, people living in a small town don't have access to public transportation and have to have cars, which is usually not the case in large towns (at least in Europe). Then I don't expect a national brand to have different prices for different parts of the country. And I don't think it's up to the client to decide how much to pay for a job on the basis of how much he PRESUMES the freelancer's expenses are.


Luce N wrote:

I would expect the cost of living in small town Mississipi and San Francisco not to be that different. For instance, people living in a small town don't have access to public transportation and have to have cars, which is usually not the case in large towns (at least in Europe). Then I don't expect a national brand to have different prices for different parts of the country. And I don't think it's up to the client to decide how much to pay for a job on the basis of how much he PRESUMES the freelancer's expenses are.


The point is that the client is indicating a price they are looking to pay. They aren't presuming anything. However, on the freelancer side, not everyone will look at that same price the same way which is my point. Cost of living and purchasing power obviously plays into that. If you wouldn't expect the cost of living to be that different between San Francisco and small town in say Mississippi, then I don't know what to say other than provide the following graphic:

 

CoL.JPG

Yes, but people in Jackson, MS, have more health issues than San Franciscans. For some reason.

 

 

 

-----------
"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless

They must be close to pesticide users.


Scott B wrote:

CoL.JPG

Thank you for the graphic, I love this type of information. However, I can't use it as it's too vague. What is the source, when was is published, how was the research of the figures done, are the figures in the 2nd and 3rd columns in dollars? Are these expenses per day, per week, per month?

 

One thing that I can use is the comparison between housing expenses. In France too, the difference between housing cost in large cities and elsewhere is amazing. 


Luce N wrote:

Thank you for the graphic, I love this type of information. However, I can't use it as it's too vague. What is the source, when was is published, how was the research of the figures done, are the figures in the 2nd and 3rd columns in dollars? Are these expenses per day, per week, per month?

 

One thing that I can use is the comparison between housing expenses. In France too, the difference between housing cost in large cities and elsewhere is amazing. 


https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/jackson-ms/275000

 

I thought I'd share a real-word personal experience here. Around 2003 the company I was working for asked me to move from Seattle to Los Angeles. At the time this was to be a lateral move. I wound up doing it but only after a salary negotiation. Why? Seattle is a major city but Washington State does not have state taxes while California does. At the time housing in So. Cal was also higher (not so much anymore). So had I of taken this move it would have resulted in a pretty good pay cut due to state tax mostly but also sales tax (at the time) and real estate. Here I am talking about two West Coast US cities which doesn't even come close to speaking of the differences from say a San Fran to Jackson or compared to a less wealthy country. 

 

I am honestly not even sure what the argument here actually is. It cannot be that $1 goes equally as far in every city of the world? That cannot be argued, can it? My point again is that we tend to look at pay through the prism of our own working and living situation. That just doesn't work on a global platform.  What's an insult to you might put food on the table for a week somewhere else. 


Scott B wrote:

I am honestly not even sure what the argument here actually is. It cannot be that $1 goes equally as far in every city of the world? That cannot be argued, can it? My point again is that we tend to look at pay through the prism of our own working and living situation. That just doesn't work on a global platform.  What's an insult to you might put food on the table for a week somewhere else. 


This is exactly what I'm trying to say. If someone is aware that what he's going to pay could put food on someone's the table for a week, it's a shame to encourage that person to decide that that someone only deserve crumbs.

I live in true southern Mississippi, on the coast.  Jackson is expensive compared to where I live - and not nearly as pretty.  

 

Bless your hearts for picking on us poor, sick people in Mississippi.


Mary W wrote:

I live in true southern Mississippi, on the coast.  Jackson is expensive compared to where I live - and not nearly as pretty.  

 

Bless your hearts for picking on us poor, sick people in Mississippi.


No one is  picking on you, Mary. I grew up in the Midwest which would also pale in comparison to say the cost of living in San Francisco or NYC. Being in a small town doesn't make one poor. Taking that same wage from Jackson or Fargo or Madison or Butte, etc. to San Francisco though would certainly curtail your purchasing power tremendously. Also love the comment that Jackson is expensive compared to where you live. Makes the point perfectly. 

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