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Anybody in the U.S. worried about the ProAct?
Thread poster: Esther Pugh
Abba Storgen (X)
Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 13:14
Greek to English
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No middle class in 'programming' Mar 20, 2021

There's hardly a workforce of 120 million in the USA (and another 30 million not working more than a 3-4 days per month or just declaring some business purely for tax purposes, but still reported as "employed" by the government) - and yet one of our members here stated that the USA has 50 million freelancers. That's almost half the active workforce. That'll give you an idea of what conclusions you can make by checking out "official numbers". LOL. Big time LOL.

And if you ask
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There's hardly a workforce of 120 million in the USA (and another 30 million not working more than a 3-4 days per month or just declaring some business purely for tax purposes, but still reported as "employed" by the government) - and yet one of our members here stated that the USA has 50 million freelancers. That's almost half the active workforce. That'll give you an idea of what conclusions you can make by checking out "official numbers". LOL. Big time LOL.

And if you ask the guys at websites that are supposedly reporting average salaries etc on where they got the data, you'll find the same contradictory and outdated sources.

Programmers?
Between the high talent in Silicon Valley (Facebook, Google etc progs and team leaders go on an average of 200K-600K), and some very experienced free lancing teams making money by selling apps through well-established websites, and those lucky young teams that attract angel investors in California, plus the old guard that was selling software to Banks for millions in the old days and are now business owners, not programming anymore, but still appearing to do so,
there's no middle class in programmers anymore.
Below all that is a vast sea of $4-$9/hr coders all over the world.


The trouble is most translators on PROZ are at least 45-50 years old. So it makes things very complicated


It is a "problem" when you are 30. It is "trouble" when you are 40. At 50 it's catastrophic.
It's not complicated at all.

Automation of knowledge work (by constantly grabbing material that the agencies never thought about protecting), high freelance taxes, and now the government with laws that are appropriate for the 19th century, are destroying one of the key pillars of the middle class, the "knowledge worker". If the Pro Act passes as is, you'll also see US companies investing mostly abroad (where free lance work is permitted just fine and is cheaper) - so it's a law harmful in multiple ways for the US economy. US translators are essentially exporters - and nobody in the government has the necessary knowledge or thoughtful process to know that. Not even the ATA noted that in their "dear senator" letter.
I think the public may wake up only when companies start outsourcing journalists and administrative staff at higher levels. Now that "work from home" becomes the norm, what's the point in not outsourcing almost everyone?
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Kaspars Melkis
gayd (X)
 
Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 22:14
English to Arabic
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..... Mar 20, 2021

Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:
if you ask the guys at websites that are supposedly reporting ..... on where they got the data


Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:
There's hardly a workforce of 120 million in the USA (and another 30 million not working more than a 3-4 days per month or just declaring some business purely for tax purposes, but still reported as "employed" by the government)


Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:
high talent in Silicon Valley go on an average of 200K-600K


According to you, a valid question here would be: Where did you get your data on those 120m and the secondary 30m, not to mention that range of 200-600K?

Also, a range of 200-600K can never be considered an average, that's too wide of a gap.

Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:
a vast sea of $4-$9/hr coders all over the world


By this statement, you are unintentionally supporting the Act and the likes of it.

And, yes, changing career is NOT the solution. Every other career is (1)equally open to the public to join, (2)already sufficiently supplied, and (3)under its own peculiar pressures.

In the odd case of a career currently undersupplied, by the time you properly get there will be already crowded.

It's how people live, they see you opening something as simple as a grocery store and generating decent income from it, they go open 10 other grocery stores right in the same spot. That's why regulations, such as the Pro Act, are needed.

I hope my point gets across through the personal bias and benefit governing that effort against the Act.


 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:14
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Ranting convinces nobody Mar 21, 2021

Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:
That'll give you an idea of what conclusions you can make by checking out "official numbers". LOL. Big time LOL.

"Big time LOL" is not what most people would call a persuasive argument, but at least you're consistently unpersuasive. Again, you're just using the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. You can provide no figures or arguments of your own, but you attempt to invalidate those offered by others. It's one thing to accept that all data sets have limitations. It's another thing to dismiss inconvenient government salary data out of hand.

OK, let's ignore the official figures for median data - taken from payroll data reported by the companies to the US government - and use a private-sector survey. Stack Overflow, for example. They base their data on surveys of real developers who use their very popular site. If you take a data scientist based in Des Moines with three years of experience, they suggest that salaries range from $67k to $117k.

salary-25%

No middle class in 'programming'

I don't know whether "middle class" is the right term, but the above figures do suggest that IT work is conducted for a range of salaries. That is as one would expect given that salary changes depending on the difficulty of the work, your own experience, what you specialise in, your location, how well you interview, whether you work full time or part time, and a number of other factors. Assuming a normal distribution as a starting point is only common sense, after all.

Of course, if you have some other data on salary distributions within the various IT professions, other than ranting about people being paid $4 an hour, I'm sure we'd all be interested to see it.

In the meantime, to get back to the point(s):

1) Working in IT is likely to pay better than working in translation, and
2) The PRO Act likely isn't going to help freelance translators, so give your Senator a call

Regards,
Dan


Esther Pugh
 
gayd (X)
gayd (X)
If Mar 21, 2021

Dan Lucas wrote:



1) Working in IT is likely to pay better than working in translation, and


Regards,
Dan


If so, why do you work in translation, not as a programmer even though you mention that coding is a hobby of yours?
In my opinion, your statement is true only for trained IT professionals holding at least an associate degree or a BA in computer science.

[Modifié le 2021-03-21 21:57 GMT]


 
Abba Storgen (X)
Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 13:14
Greek to English
+ ...
A video to watch - Very relevant Mar 22, 2021

There's a video on YT with title "The Surveillance Economy and Extreme Income Inequality", with Jaron Lanier (one of the founders of Virtual Reality in Silicon Valley).
The title of the video is badly made, because in reality he talks a lot about the "gig economy" (that's us) and what these new technologies, which depend on our own input and work, did to all of us. The "real world findings" will shock most viewers.
Because the "stats", as he admits himself, do not exist in reality -
... See more
There's a video on YT with title "The Surveillance Economy and Extreme Income Inequality", with Jaron Lanier (one of the founders of Virtual Reality in Silicon Valley).
The title of the video is badly made, because in reality he talks a lot about the "gig economy" (that's us) and what these new technologies, which depend on our own input and work, did to all of us. The "real world findings" will shock most viewers.
Because the "stats", as he admits himself, do not exist in reality - he calls it a "phantom economy".

On to various laws and taxes etc.,

1) Working in IT is likely to pay better than working in translation, and

If you are really good and experienced in it, absolutely. You don't even need a degree in the USA, if you can prove that you're really good and really experienced. But in the last few years translators have been wasting their time and destroying their health working for online platforms (aka: automated plantations), without the necessary will or means to snap out of it cold turkey.

In the past over here in Proz I warned about MT taking away the business from us. I faced strong opposition. It happened. Then I also warned about a trend to reduce prices to unthinkable levels. Again, I faced strong opposition. It happened. Nobody listens, but everyone wants to somehow argue about it, finding anything they can on the internet (you can find anything from all possible sides in there) to counter legitimate and urgent concerns.
While translators' net income fell off a cliff, the stats were showing it continuously rising. And everyone reading the stats, was assuming that everyone else is doing great, and he's just the exception.

2) The PRO Act likely isn't going to help freelance translators, so give your Senator a call

I did, but we're not many voices. A handful of guys and a begging statement from the ATA won't do any good. A lawsuit for violation of constitutional rights or natural human rights or for causing undue hardship will be far more effective (Congress in the US does nothing until someone sues them or pays them), and I doubt poor little translators are as threatening as lawyers or doctors. The Pro Act will destroy livelihoods, the same way the sharing economy did - and if it weren't for only one voice (Jaron Lanier) we wouldn't be aware of that either.
Many voices, but weak, you won't hear them, and so you'll think that everything is fine according to "statistics".

By the way, according to ziprecruiter, a typist (!!!) in the US makes 57,166 per year (!!!). That's what one believes if they believe everything they see on the internet corresponds to real life...
What is the reality? There are some part timers here and there doing clerical work once in a while when needed, gross wage (not net) is $19/hour, so they multiply this by hours and days and come up with a conclusion that doesn't exist in this part of this planet.


[Edited at 2021-03-22 06:03 GMT]
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Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 22:14
English to Arabic
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..... Mar 22, 2021

Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:
The "gig economy" (that's us) and what these new technologies, which depend on our own input and work, did to all of us.
The "real world findings" will shock most viewers.
Because the "stats", as he admits himself, do not exist in reality - he calls it a "phantom economy".
In the last few years translators have been wasting their time and destroying their health working for online platforms (aka: automated plantations), without the necessary will or means to snap out of it cold turkey.
Translators' net income fell off a cliff, the stats were showing it continuously rising. And everyone reading the stats, was assuming that everyone else is doing great, and he's just the exception.

Again, everything you've just written means that effort to cancel regulation is NOT the solution.
The wise move is to come up with a better regulation. "Continue as we are now and hope for the best" is NOT the answer.


Michael Wetzel
 
Abba Storgen (X)
Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 13:14
Greek to English
+ ...
Proposed regulations (but too late now) Mar 23, 2021

Sadek_A wrote:
Again, everything you've just written means that effort to cancel regulation is NOT the solution.
The wise move is to come up with a better regulation. "Continue as we are now and hope for the best" is NOT the answer.


a) They could have demanded Silicon Valley to pay the translators for the sentences they contribute to their machine database ("corpus" they call it) on a per-sentence basis. Because we ended up training their machine for free, and this was not disclosed by Google. I'm not talking about copyright. I'm saying that the entry of translated sentences BY PROFESSIONALS DURING THEIR WORK via their API, qualifies 100% as "professional machine training by an expert."
Google and social media love using other people's engagement and work for free, this has to stop asap.

b) They could have required private agencies to be transparent about their price ranges, so that both end-clients and freelancers would at least have an approximate indicator of what's going on, and price abuse on both ends would have been reduced. The price secrecy in this particular industry is absolutely crazy and misleading. If this sounds "radical", the Pro Act is more radical.

c) They could have issued regulations for US agencies to issue some form of 1099s or something like that to their off-shore freelancers, so that the latter wouldn't be working tax-free. That's of course the No.1 problem of globalization in many industries: operators in the "other" country can pocket the revenues without detection from tax authorities, especially in the least organized countries. This gives them an immense competitive advantage (illegal, but they're doing it).

d) They could have abolished the payroll tax for sole proprietors in the US, since we're not entitled to any benefits this tax is supposed to support.

e) They could have required for the names of the translator, editor, proofreader, post-DTP proofreader, project manager and agency to be indicated in every project, even in small print.

f) They could enact the Pro Act throughout US, Europe and Asia at the same time, to level the playing field. Correct?
Or maybe politicians are incentivized to destroy freelancing only in 1 particular major country?

Instead, they left all these companies do whatever, under the umbrella excuse that they are private companies therefore they can do as they please. But at the same time, they do not recognize the right of the private individual to do as he/she pleases. See the double standard?

For the young translators, if this law passes, may be a blessing in disguise, it'll force them out of a dead-end job. For the older ones, it's not giving us any reasonable time to react, it'll be ugly... on the humorous side, ATA's members next year may be all from other countries...


Irene (Renata) Liapis
 
Esther Pugh
Esther Pugh  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:14
Member (2014)
English to German
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TOPIC STARTER
Who’s your Senator? Mar 24, 2021

Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:

.... on the humorous side, ATA's members next year may be all from other countries...


That is indeed funny. Can you imagine?

Anyway – I am glad that the ATA is taking a stand this time, and much sooner than they did with AB5. That’s their job, and I’ve been flabbergasted how they could wait that long, but whatever ......... we’ll see

Just out of curiosity: Who’s your Senator?


 
Irene (Renata) Liapis
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Greece
Member (2005)
Italian to English
+ ...
A Voice of Reason Mar 24, 2021

Julie Shu totally dodged the question, and made absolutely no sense while she was at it.

This is a very good article on the subject, covering all independent contractors - this author very aptly believes that "the ultimate goal is to make as many people as possible outright employees".<
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Julie Shu totally dodged the question, and made absolutely no sense while she was at it.

This is a very good article on the subject, covering all independent contractors - this author very aptly believes that "the ultimate goal is to make as many people as possible outright employees".

https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2021/03/02/the-pro-act-is-becoming-labors-amateur-hour/?sh=560d72ee529a

I wonder, have they thought about what they will do with the many ranks of unemployed that will result from passing such catastrophic, thoughtless laws? It's not just translators, there are many other categories of professionals as well. What are they planning to do with all these people then?
The whole issue would be solved simply by adjusting the wording of the ABC test. That it seems to be so hard to get these people to understand this simple fact is scary indeed and make that quote above even more relevant....

I am really hoping that the spirit of free enterprise will prevail in congress, that seems to be the only way to avoid this.

[Edited at 2021-03-25 13:07 GMT]

[Edited at 2021-03-25 13:22 GMT]
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Esther Pugh
Dan Lucas
Ildiko Santana
 
Irene (Renata) Liapis
Irene (Renata) Liapis  Identity Verified
Greece
Member (2005)
Italian to English
+ ...
Sign the petition Mar 25, 2021

In addition to contacting your senators, which I did, also sign these petitions:

https://www.uschamber.com/action
https://americansforprosperity.org/flex-your-independence/#ic-form

The more noise can be made the better.



[Edited
... See more
In addition to contacting your senators, which I did, also sign these petitions:

https://www.uschamber.com/action
https://americansforprosperity.org/flex-your-independence/#ic-form

The more noise can be made the better.



[Edited at 2021-03-25 19:38 GMT]

[Edited at 2021-03-26 19:30 GMT]
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Esther Pugh
 
Michele Fauble
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United States
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Norwegian to English
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Pro PRO ACT propaganda in NY Times Mar 25, 2021

Freelancers Shouldn’t Have ‘Horror Stories’

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/opinion/pro-act-biden-labor.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage


 
Esther Pugh
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English to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Tone deaf Mar 25, 2021



Yes - I’ve read that one; they’re cropping up everywhere these days. Tone-deaf.


Irene (Renata) Liapis
 
Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 19:14
German to English
Propaganda? Mar 26, 2021

I thought the Forbes article was more informative, but I really don't get dismissing the NYT opinion piece as propaganda.

First of all, I agree with everyone or almost everyone here that the B Prong (= if you're an Über-Fahrer working for Uber or a translator working for a translation agency, then you are either an employee or a misclassified employee) does not work and that the California B Prong B Pronging the B Port a lot of freelancers.

Second of all, I think that
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I thought the Forbes article was more informative, but I really don't get dismissing the NYT opinion piece as propaganda.

First of all, I agree with everyone or almost everyone here that the B Prong (= if you're an Über-Fahrer working for Uber or a translator working for a translation agency, then you are either an employee or a misclassified employee) does not work and that the California B Prong B Pronging the B Port a lot of freelancers.

Second of all, I think that the NYT opinion piece is pretty helpful in understanding why simply being against the Pro Act is not enough.

"She had no paid time off, no sick leave or 401(k), and had to buy her own health insurance."
I'm guessing this also applies to most (= more than half of) freelance translators and most other knowledge workers. Judging by the advertising I hear from the US, this increasingly also includes an underclass of psychologists, doctors and pharmacists. The author also mentions university teaching staff and journalists, among others.

"Our [= independent contractors'] median income is just $32,000 per year ..."
This is the crux of the problem: If we do not earn enough money to be financially independent, then we are not independent contractors. Every advantage based on personal independence is a mirage unless the real economics of our business give us financial independence. If we do not consistently earn enough money per working hour to bankroll not working a lot of hours, then we have no flexibility and no ability to enter contracts as an equal partner. If we do not earn enough to save for when things go wrong and when we are old, then we and our clients are exploiting the people who, at some point, are going to have to bail most of us out.

"It targets the enormous problem of misclassification — of employers choosing to call workers 'contractors' instead of 'employees' often to avoid paying them fair wages, providing health benefits and workers’ compensation or submitting to laws against discrimination and sexual harassment."
The B Prong is new: Everything else is part of an age-old, ongoing problem that also involves undeclared income. The other thing that is new is that this problem has been greatly expanded by the new gig economy.

"Ms. McDaniel is also a plaintiff in a lawsuit that contests AB5 on First Amendment grounds, filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which fights for 'the right to earn an honest living free from unreasonable government interference.'"
That's fine, but the more pressing issue for most people is the right to earn an honest living free from unreasonable, government-sanctioned private coercion.

What I would like to see is for the government to stop incentivizing misclassification: That could be done by implementing a government surcharge on all fees paid to independent contractors at a level that eliminates the tax-avoidance/evasion benefits of legal and illegal misclassification. Those funds could then be used to pay the second half of independent contractors' social security and for other purposes of that kind. And then businesses could hire employees when it makes business sense and hire independent contractors when that makes business sense.
The second issue is extending basic worker protections to freelancers, including preventing them from earning less than the minimum wage (and I am talking about income and not sales = after expenses and additional tax burden relative to employees). Maybe it would be better to handle these two issues separately and to do a better job of doing one half of what the Pro Act ought to be trying to do now and the other half in the next year and a half.
And you would also think that there would be Republicans (and "moderate" Democrats) at this point who were smart enough to look at Trump's success and set aside their tin-foil libertarian hats for a while to actually do something for the voters who got so sick of the established Democrats' and Republicans' fake solutions for real problems that they went out and voted for Trump's fake solutions. The clock is ticking, but there is a lot of really low-hanging fruit out there.

There is a completely legitimate argument to be made for the flexibility of hiring independent contractors. I wholeheartedly see that, and I also enjoy being a freelancer. The problem is that this legitimate argument and this valid perspective are constantly also used to defend practices that are unmistakably exploitative. So, complain to your senators about the Pro Act, but please make it clear that you actually want something done about the gigantic problems it is hamfistedly trying to alleviate.
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Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 22:14
English to Arabic
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Such a beauty that article! Mar 26, 2021

---Those opposing the PRO Act “claim they’re doing better than ever and that our people are losers, basically”---
---Employers choosing to call workers “contractors” instead of “employees” often to avoid paying them fair wages, providing health benefits and workers’ compensation or submitting to laws against discrimination and sexual harassment---
---As a result, states and the federal government lose hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues and employer contri
... See more
---Those opposing the PRO Act “claim they’re doing better than ever and that our people are losers, basically”---
---Employers choosing to call workers “contractors” instead of “employees” often to avoid paying them fair wages, providing health benefits and workers’ compensation or submitting to laws against discrimination and sexual harassment---
---As a result, states and the federal government lose hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues and employer contributions to unemployment insurance---
---Workers and their families suffer when they find themselves ineligible for family leave or employer-provided health insurance---

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/opinion/pro-act-biden-labor.html


Michael Wetzel wrote:
-This is the crux of the problem: If we do not earn enough money to be financially independent, then we are not independent contractors. Every advantage based on personal independence is a mirage unless the real economics of our business give us financial independence. If we do not consistently earn enough money per working hour to bankroll not working a lot of hours, then we have no flexibility and no ability to enter contracts as an equal partner. If we do not earn enough to save for when things go wrong and when we are old, then we and our clients are exploiting the people who, at some point, are going to have to bail most of us out.
-That's fine, but the more pressing issue for most people is the right to earn an honest living free from unreasonable, government-sanctioned private coercion.
-The problem is that this legitimate argument and this valid perspective are constantly also used to defend practices that are unmistakably exploitative.
-But please make it clear that you actually want something done about the gigantic problems it is hamfistedly trying to alleviate.

Totally agree.
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Kaspars Melkis
Kaspars Melkis  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:14
English to Latvian
+ ...
I read NY article and I think it is pure propaganda Mar 26, 2021

Leigh had freedom to tell the client that she needs to take a break. She wasn't forced to work. She chose to work continuously and if it was because she wasn't making enough then apparently her rates were too low. Then it wouldn't have mattered if she had just one client or many clients. Maybe freelancing wasn't for her and she would do better by finding a job.

Some freelancers charge good rates but still decide to work while sick because they have more expenses – a mortgage of a
... See more
Leigh had freedom to tell the client that she needs to take a break. She wasn't forced to work. She chose to work continuously and if it was because she wasn't making enough then apparently her rates were too low. Then it wouldn't have mattered if she had just one client or many clients. Maybe freelancing wasn't for her and she would do better by finding a job.

Some freelancers charge good rates but still decide to work while sick because they have more expenses – a mortgage of a big house to pay for or whatever. Now they will be f*cked if they lose their freelance gigs because they most likely won't be hired as full time workers anyway.

$32,000 per year is enough to live comfortably in many places of the world and even in many places in the US. Maybe New York is more expensive but the article doesn't say that this is the income of freelancers in NY only. Freelance writers don't have to live in NY city, they have a freedom to move where rent is cheaper. Personally I am moving around a lot. That's my preference. Saying that now I need to get a job that most likely will oblige me to live continuously in one place because I only make around $32,000 per year or even less, is frankly an insult.

I can understand some issues for US freelancers with health care. It is clear that the US needs a better healthcare system. I prefer the NHS model in the UK but other European countries have different systems that also work very well whereas the US system is clearly a mess. That needs to be fixed instead of attacking freelance work.
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Dan Lucas
Irene (Renata) Liapis
Esther Pugh
Viesturs Lacis
 
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Anybody in the U.S. worried about the ProAct?







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