I don't really know anymore about the legality of the recent actions of the management.
I'm a Southeast Asian freelancer working as a CS for a Chicago-based 'cleaning platform.' I just found out that very recently, they started paying out agents at a base rate of $3 per hour while tenured agents are paid eithee $5-6 depending on their tenure (usually getting upskilled or being an agent for 6+ months get that $1 raise). I'm a newbie so I'm judt getting paid $3 an hour and the only way to increase my pay is by performing with a near impossible standard especially for newbies. Such as completing 40 'tasks' MINIMUM per day while also avoiding every mistake. We're also on the job for a minimum of 48-50 hours per week, but 4-5 hours of those are unpaid lunch breaks. On top of that, Tenure/high performing agents are given mandatory OT's ranging from 5 to 15 hours of mandatory and max of 25 hours if an agent would choose to.
But I recently found out that regardless of tenure, the agents getting paid $5-6 face a huge risk of being brought down to also just $3/hr if their performance are deemed belpw satisfactory for 2 consecutive months. Imagine getting your pay cut in half regardless of the value you brought the company for YEARS. As absurd as it is, the people from my country are just naturally timid and more often than not, the risk of losing a job means starvation and having your kids leave school, which is why I doubt a union will ever be created.
Unsurprisingly, plenty of tenure AND high performing agents just left immediately and the company is currently facing a very low quality support and high 'task' backlogs. Newbies being paid this low, and tenures facing risk of getting their pay halved without consideration screams lower agent motivation and satisfaction and very high turnover rate.