Amazon’s Mechanical Turk May Violate California Wage Laws

An Amazon website called Mechanical Turk may be employing thousands of people for cents an hour, possibly violating California wage laws.

Mechanical Turk and Wage Laws

Mechanical Turk is an Amazon website that employs thousands of humans who perform small tasks that computers are not able to successfully complete. It’s named after an 18th century “machine” that appeared to play chess against a human opponent but was secretly operated by a hidden human player.

The website, opened to the public in 2005, allows outside employers to post small tasks for Mechanical Turk workers to assign to themselves and complete. These tasks generally pay pennies. Examples of tasks may include transcribing invoices, labeling photographs, and participating in studies.

According to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey of approximately 3,000 Americans who worked for Mechanical Turk, around 25 percent claim that they made most or all of their income through the website. Over half of the workers who responded to the survey indicated that they earned less than $5 an hour. Although current minimum wage laws in the U.S. set the federal minimum at $7.25 an hour, people who work for Mechanical Turk reportedly make an average of $1.77 an hour. Only about four percent of Mechanical Turk workers make more than minimum wage.

Due to the piecework nature of Mechanical Turk tasks, these jobs have previously been thought not to be covered by minimum wage laws. Workers at Mechanical Turk are classified as independent contractors, and are not afforded the same privileges and protections as employees. However, under updates to employee classification laws in California, Mechanical Turk workers may qualify to be classified as employees.

California Wage and Hour Laws

Under recent updates to California wage laws, it is now much harder for employers to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees. Workers who qualify to be classified as employees are entitled to minimum wage, overtime pay, and other benefits.

According to California’s new wage laws, workers may only be classified as independent contractors if they meet three criteria known as the ABC test. First, workers must be free from the direction and control of their employer regarding how or when they work. Second, the worker must be engaged in an independently established trade or business doing the same work that they are performing for the employer. Third, the work that the worker is performing must be different than the general scope of work for the business they are working for.

Other factors that may be considered when determining whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor include whether the worker or the employer supplies or pays for the tools necessary for the job, whether the services performed require special skills, the permanence or impermanence of the working relationship, and the method and frequency of payment.

In addition to the low pay, many Mechanical Turk workers claim that employers on the site frequently refuse to pay up the pennies they have promised to workers for completing the job. According to one worker, the biggest problem with the site is that employers can “reject” workers submissions, but still receive and keep the work that they have completed. Workers claim that there are few protections in place to keep employers from rejecting tasks for no reason other than to avoid paying the Mechanical Turk worker who completed them.

Workers at Mechanical Turk and other piecework or gig jobs who believe they may have been misclassified may benefit from checking in with a qualified wage and hour attorney. Victims of employee misclassification or wage law violations may be able to recover compensation for owed wages, punitive damages, and other costs.

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