McGraw Hill Rejects Calls to Stop Charging Its Freelancers a Fee in Order to Get Paid

Disir · Apr 12, 2021

Two weeks ago, In These Times reported on the existence of the 2.2% fee that the company began charging last October. The fee applies to freelancers and independent contractors who submit invoices through the company’s invoicing system, called Fieldglass — but because that is the only way to invoice the company, it amounts to a mandatory fee that workers must pay in order to get what the company owes. The company calls it an “administrative fee” levied in order to “cover the cost of third-party vendors that help us ensure that each contractor meets the requirements needed to be classified as an Independent Contractor under various state laws and IRS regulations.” But it is, in effect, an across-the-board mandatory pay cut for all of the workers, a brazen and unusual move by the company to shift its normal administrative costs onto the backs of its freelancers.

....The letter also includes a common rationalization used by “gig economy” companies that seek to lower labor costs by using more freelancers and fewer full time employees: “Many of the independent contractors we engage already have full-time jobs and the work they do for us provides them with additional income. The rate of independent contractors returning to do work with us is very high and during the pandemic, the percentage of independent contractors who had more than one project with us increased. The high return rate implies satisfaction among the independent contractors who work with us.” This is an example of the gig economy’s underlying sleight of hand — to force workers to take up more and more freelance work out of economic necessity, and then use the fact that they are doing that work as proof that they’re satisfied with the arrangement.