Throwaway because it would be way to easy for me to be found by my employer, and I still need this income.
3 months ago, I joined an agency based in the US. They're one of the ones you see on Facebook all the time, relying on online collaboration tools to “execute on the owner's vision”. Huge words with little substance.
Before I begin the list of issues that you may be facing, let me put this plainly:
- If your employer controls when you work and how you complete the tasks you're assigned, you're almost certainly not a contractor, but an employee. This is important to keep in mind because the IRS loves to collect fines from businesses that don't classify their staff correctly.
- What's in your contract doesn't matter to the IRS. They have specific criteria they rely on.
- https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/independent-contractor-self-employed-or-employee
- YOUR LOCAL LAWS. Know them and rely on them. Just because the business is not in your country, doesn't mean your laws don't apply. In most places I know of, you're entitled to sue US entities locally, no problem.
- This also goes for worker protections. If you're entitled to paid leave locally, you can and should be getting it regardless of where your employer is based. If you're not, you're entitled to compensation for leave you did not get. If you don't get either, you've a really high chance of winning a suit. Luckily, courts are not very expensive outside the US.
- Don't be held hostage. Hold them hostage instead. The US NLRB, DOL, etc may seem ineffective, but the very threat of them is often enough to get your paychecks on time. They're a deterrent, often a very good one. And you don't need to be in the US to report the business.
Now, on to the illegal bullshit at my current workplace.
- Most staff are employees, but made to believe they're contractors. (illegal)
- Staff are prohibited from discussing work conditions and compensation among them selves. (illegal)
- While we use a project management system, wages are only paid for the time an employee is clocked in on a particular task only. So even if they show up at 8 and do general prep for the day, are between tasks, in the bathroom, w/e, they're not paid for it. (illegal)
- Time sheets get “adjusted” if the owner doesn't feel like they got their money's worth… out of their $3/h worker. (illegal)
- Taxes are not being withheld, and no W8-* forms are being submitted to the IRS. (illegal)
- Contracts are one-sided about at-will employment. In particular, they allow the business to not pay employees for any reason at all. (illegal)
- But if you quit, the contract threatens that you won't be paid for the work you've already done. And you must give notice or you won't get paid. (illegal)
- If you don't perform your tasks correctly, you're subjected to 'unpaid training'. (illegal, at least in most of the world)
- On the other hand, the business claims it can fire you for any reason with no notice. (only legal if the employee is physically in the US, really)
There's more, of course. The important part is, if you're working for a US company, that's great, but your local laws take precedence, because you're physically in that country. And that entitles you to normal worker protections.
Other issues that are not strictly illegal, just bullshit:
- We have an extremely detailed recruiting process. In my 15 years of being in business, I have not seen something this overkill, even when I was taking on $50+/h positions. These are for less than $10/h. The recruiting process preys on people who need the job immediately, and then they get just enough to survive on.
- Casual team communication is strongly discouraged. If you have time to talk, you have time to work. So there's really no team to speak of, folks are only showing up to do their assigned tasks, and barely anything else. So obvious issues don't get brought up because why would they?
- HR doesn't exist. We have an Indian guy that's paid pennies, and all he does is do what he's told. He has no idea about the laws of either the US, or any of the countries we have staff in. But he's really good with making report spreadsheets from everyone's time sheets.
- If you work slowly (because you need the hours so you don't starve), you're getting reprimanded, and your hours “adjusted”. If you work fast, you don't make enough to live on. Lose-lose.
- Our email newsletter guy runs the entire department by himself, for over 30 clients. You'd think this massive revenue is rewarded, but.. $13/h. Contractually. But because he's jumping between tasks, I'd wager he never reaches $10 at the end of the day.
- Security? Nah. Who cares if random people you treat like this have access to critical infrastructure?
Rant over. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I'm not a lawyer, but I know how to read the law, and I have never seen this degree of BS before.