Petra Hi,
Thank you very much for your response. Comment on:
"In an ideal world milestones on a contract should not be able to be changed unilaterally by only one party (the client) without the other party's approval."
If Upwork doesn't protect the Freelancer from customer's changing Milestones and Pricing on its own terms, then Upwork risks maximizing its revenue but also losing top performing freelancers. It is not about "ideal world" it is about keeping up with minimum business standards. In the real business world, if the parties want to change the contractual terms then they would have to sign an amendment to capture the new contractual terms. For no reason, one party can change on its own the terms without the agreement of the other party.
Otherwise, Upwork accepts that the Customer can dictate/enforce the project terms he desires to the Freelancers with or without their consent according to the phrase:
@Bill H wrote:
What Maria described has the same effect as ending contract one and opening contract two. She didn't agree to the change, so the client needs to end the first contract and negotiate a second one with her.
"No it does not have the same effect at all, and nothing can force the client to end the the first contract and negotiate a second one."
If this is the point, why the Freelancers submit proposals for specific projects? It is totally unnecessary.
Perhaps, Upwork should revisit its strategy on this issue. I know that this is not a common customer practice but you should have a process in place that will discourage the customers' from taking advantage of the GAPs of ToS.
