Online jobs undermining centuries of labor rights
We may be contributing to a systematic re-establishment of workers' self-exploitation in the scarcely regulated digital marketplace.
It took a pandemic to realize and prove how effective can be to transition from your work office to produce from home, but maybe it did a lot more than it should. Surveys revealed that most of the population working from home tends to be more stressed out these days than what they picture it would be when wishing to work from the comfort of their own roof. I will try to break it down to the binomial relationship between the Employer and the employee to understand where or to who the outcome benefits and weights on at the end.
While not all I describe is for generalization, but for exposing some sided points as a few of many problems in today's labor market, by my own experience, of course, I am sharing some of the data that has been gathered by me and some from interesting research I have made to bring into consideration as gray lined aspects in the way humanity is starting to twist or even dismiss some rules and minimal guarantees achieved by the workers union throughout history for the purpose of best profiting and second meaning intentioned malpractice diminishing the human resource as an asset.
On a traditional labor schedule of 8 am to 5 pm at the office, 8 to 9 hours are considered effective work. It is never taken into account the time it takes to get to your workplace and the time you take to get back home. Some countries do regulate your home-work transit as effective labor hours, and some simply don’t. For the employer, the running cost of an office or a building, equipment, and expenses are a burden they carry. If you as an employee have any home eventuality or personal to do’s, even more for those newly parenting, it becomes a challenge to attend. Permits and justifications are cumbersome if not unpaid. Missing in action for even a couple of hours normally represents cost losses to your employer.
Since COVID global outbreak, working from home became the to-go modal for at least 30% of the formally employed population on the planet after this past March, on top of the 60% of Millennials recorded pre-COVID that were already digital workers. It is no news that Millennials are the biggest productive population on duty in history, meaning that we never had such a giant amount of people working in the same period of time holding also the most educated and prepared professionals than ever before. On surveys, the young adults have expressed their preference for working from home, as well as they rather have a balanced living with their own time management. However, employers may be not quite granting this without a big price to pay by the employees themselves.
In short, our generation statistics and today's’ innovations have proved that at least 50% of the existing job positions offered worldwide can be performed from home with the current technologies. Different theories, benefits, and adjustments are on a test or still being subject to analysis. This being said, we can only conclude that working from home is further than just viable, is imminent. But the question is how fair this is developing for the parties involved?
It all has been coming down to…
From the employers’ point of view, the low running cost is great, no office furniture and equipment, having your own devices is actually their requirement to hire you so they most likely do not cover you with having one nor renewing it, having your own Wi-Fi connection strong and stable is also mandatory for which most of the time, the employee pays for its own at home, no electricity bill, no cleaning nor any building rent expenses. But your home generates its bills that are only… yours. Employers will only cover the working software’s licenses and maintenance if they have any, because probably they may also not pay any at all, as we all know many companies run on free software or office suits. Yet, costs can be extremely cheap and limit itself to just payroll.
So now, being the payroll the only cost, a good manager always aims to make the business more and more profitable, meaning on…reducing cost and increase productivity. At this point, if you think about it, our salary is THE business improvement issue.
Our salary pays devices and bills, but you are also required to…
To be tech-savvy is a requirement in the labor market to avoid certain setups and the trouble solving operational difficulties in a company that is running online. Moreover, employers are requiring you to be multifaceted, independent, be comfortable under pressure (Sure!), flexible and available, creative, self-aware, and self-motivated to the goals. This may be a little bit too much taking into considerations that just because you are most of the time at home you may be ready for that extra mile, always. When not working on a device you are still in your off-time catching up with your socials with another gadget making yourself too available because you are still kind of using your working tools when not on duty. The consequence of this comes to the employer’s responsibility briefing on his surveillance mechanisms and the search for the employee that wants to shine more to get a promotion anytime soon. Still, we are aware that promotion is tricky, rewards vague, benefits always under consideration, and hardly concretized sometimes.
Tech has made most of your steps and performance trackable, which allows your supervision to be easier and a bit more empowering to the abusive bossing behavior. But beyond this, tech has made our productivity so efficient that research reveals that home workers are recording on average 14 days more of effective work per month than office-based homologs. Yet, employers are pushing the idea of some experts stating that working from home should take a pay cut as you work in the comfort of your home with “less” living costs, no transport to your workplace, and no meal expenses out of your house.
This makes me think of interesting considerations on how we can agree on such a final balance. Companies are saving a lot of running costs while you are demanded to assume those costs, diversify your knowledge and availability. Some digital nomads consider hating being home after long labor days for which they opt for traveling and go to the so-proliferating co-working spaces. Still, you will get paid less? Does this even make any sense? How come that the so wished work-from-home is firing back? I can hear a voice echoing in the back of my heads saying “Be careful about what you ask for”.
Online companies are tending to be the most profitable business in the world nowadays but the payroll trend is going in the whole opposite direction. An example of excellence, Facebook, whose director recently confirmed the work from home policy “forever” with what is being considered already by his own employees as a “brutal” and “barbaric” pay cut.
The final kick to these employers’ conclusions is the fact that the millennials' labor demand is so big that every individual is replaceable at the end of the day. And here comes the point where the labor market does not play in not- one-employees’ favor:
Outsourced labor
Internet access makes you not only easily replaceable in your own country but you will also compete with the best qualified yet cheaper labor in other locations of the planet that do not find better wages in their own countries with lower economies.
The nationality of labor is defining higher or lower salaries. Yes, our place of birth defines our income, so I do not wonder about the immigration policies across borders getting stricter and stricter as a governmental response to protect their nationalism and their respective labor markets.
In the Philippines, one of the top outsourced markets, you will find a big mass of young multilingual professionals with an average wage of $5–10 USD a day. They may be as qualified as you and me but a company can offer them a third and sometimes a fourth of your salary to run the same things as you do. At the same time, their visa and traveling requirements are one of the toughest in the world, so the online world has become their booming opportunity. With a USA average wage, a company can hire at least 3 to 5 employees in this Southeast Asian country. In India, the average wage can go as low as $1 to 3 USD for an 8 hours workday. In Canada, for average positions, the minimum wage can be around $210 USD for an 8 hours workday, this may vary up to a 50% upper or lower per province and from city to city. See the gaps?
Diversity label
There is a trend of nowadays startups to promote their cultures and perks as diverse and welcoming to individuals of all races, nationalities, and backgrounds, but beyond from getting to buy the idea of equal opportunities for all, these type of companies are creating a think-tank for geographical market understanding to expand their distribution campaigns and, at the same time, measuring their employees' productivity value ratios per location. One would think they are trying to approach a team game for better servicing with a consumer-centric strategy and a platform for the professional projection of their employees that looks like they are building an inclusive image that sales very good in the eyes of the public, in a very cliché way of rebranding their doings instead, they are attracting talent from different countries to analyze where labor is producing the most in the cheapest way.
I worked remotely for around 2 years for a startup company that was providing tech tools for airport services around the world. Their CS team had around 30 employees from different continents and one of the things that disappointed me a lot about it was to find out that every single fellow worker was never making the same salary regardless of doing the exact same work and being hired at the same time, furthermore, some colleagues were doing so much more for doing way less than others. The salary difference would fluctuate from 25 to 50% more, and in some cases less, from one member to the other. The company realized that a Philippine member would be happy having 8 hrs. night shift scheduled for 6 days a week ( no weekends off) with a $400 USD salary, while an Argentine would feel better having a 6 hrs. Shift for 5 days a week for $800 USD salary, but at the same time with the same amount of workload and responsibilities, a French member would only stay in the company for no less than $1500 USD for the exact same shift as the Argentine. In consequence, more Philippines started to get hired in recent times as the company was battling a low in stocks as they have proofed that the labor value ratio was high on productivity and low on payroll demand. Although, managers would openly and honestly advise that promotions were only available for those based in the American continent due to the proximity to the executives and the trust required, for whatever that means.
This is the gold mine for many startups around the world that are offering $300 to $600 salary per month to individuals in low economy countries, scouting for better-qualified labor in certain countries to enroll them and reduce their payroll, lowering often their main or only running cost even more. And sadly to say, no law binding contracts, no promotion guarantee and a lot of working demand, weekends schedules, night shifts, etc. abusing the fact that these people may have a big chance of getting nothing else better, which makes them at the same time more loyal and less complaining employees. As experienced and skillful you can be, tech makes each task in the online world programmable, so the competitiveness does not lay on the preparation but on how cheap you can offer yourself.
The Guinee pig that started the trend
Call centers started the trends decades ago. Many US companies started to outsource their Customer support and virtual assistance to developing countries. The sales pitch of these centers were, firstly, non-tax payment regime benefits as massive hiring labor in developing countries as a job generator for the local government, and secondly, cheap labor opportunity where one US contact service employee salary would pay 5 job positions in El Salvador, for instance, or 10 people in India. US companies started to expand their workforce and market coverage exponentially. The hiring requirement was that these new overseas employees would speak English as American as possible.
Pizza parties, smartphones or home theater, even a $50 USD groceries coupon at a VIP supermarket were the incentives and rewards for the customer Care teams of the different campaigns if they would have the best English accent individuals or for handling more and faster incoming customer’s inquiries in the entire calling hub. It is very easy to incentive this mass of workers where their opportunities for a good wage are very low. Engineers, lawyers, architects, Masters, and I even saw a few Ph.D.’s, working for the sales force being lured to these centers for an a-bit-higher wage than the local average and of course, free beer Fridays. In Nicaragua, where I am from, a lot of people see this even as cool and fancy to work in these places.
This fact pushes all of us to try to be better qualified, to increase our professional value, some dare to change careers, or to get independent and freelance. Some will take the leap of entrepreneurship. After working for 3 different startups in the last years, I quit the idea and started to focus on the projects I had in my personal notes. I write by passion and love to put cards on the table to think and discuss a little bit. My point is to bring facts that will make us wonder: Is this fair? Life isn’t fair but is it worth losing all battles waged throughout centuries where the workers have fought for their rights and equality, slavery abolished and minimal labor guarantees were achieved? Is it possible that we are facing a brutal neoliberalism policy that brings worker ‘s union achievement backwards?
A very factual point that deepens the lack of this labor play is our government systems, even in the wealthiest nations, which have not been able to keep up and regulate matters as quickly as the super dynamical tech world moves. Not so many politicians around the world quite understand the powerful position that online corporations have and the suppressive policy held towards the labor market painted as a better growth opportunity. Could it be that we do not have young enough people in leading positions that grew up with enough tech access to spot the glitches in this upcoming new labor era? May be that the massive millennial population is not enrolling in politics enough to address the issue properly to demand screening on these mechanisms to fight for guarantees? It keeps making me wonder.