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Post by HeadHunter on Mar 16, 2017 3:02:03 GMT
I think it ultimately comes down to some people wanting more than was initially offered to do what they had already agreed upon.
You're right about at-will employment, but it's pretty clear from every agreement I've ever seem for demo teams and judges that these are not considered terms of employment. Agreement to perform a service is not the same as retainer. These people are freelancers - not employees.
If these game judges or demo teams truly are to be considered employees, then what we have is a labor dispute. If they were "employed" then they agreed to accept the compensation offered for that employment. If there is no contractual obligation, then they are free to quit if the agreed compensation is insufficient, and WotC is free to fire them if they aren't happy with it. What they can't do, is sue for "back pay" of compensation which was neither offered nor agreed upon.
These judges want to have it both ways - they want the benefits of "employment" while retaining the freedom of freelancers.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Mar 16, 2017 4:27:42 GMT
I think it ultimately comes down to some people wanting more than was initially offered to do what they had already agreed upon. You're right about at-will employment, but it's pretty clear from every agreement I've ever seem for demo teams and judges that these are not considered terms of employment. Agreement to perform a service is not the same as retainer. These people are freelancers - not employees. If these game judges or demo teams truly are to be considered employees, then what we have is a labor dispute. If they were "employed" then they agreed to accept the compensation offered for that employment. If there is no contractual obligation, then they are free to quit if the agreed compensation is insufficient, and WotC is free to fire them if they aren't happy with it. What they can't do, is sue for "back pay" of compensation which was neither offered nor agreed upon. These judges want to have it both ways - they want the benefits of "employment" while retaining the freedom of freelancers. I'm not arguing with you about the judge's motives, because it's baseless speculation. I'm not super familiar with US law, but you seem to fixating on contractual obligations when the issue is one of statutory interpretation and applicability. Do the WOTC judges count as employees? If yes, all of the applicable legislation about employees apply to them, including - most relevantly for this case - minimum wage laws. It doesn't matter what the agreed upon compensation was, with a very few exceptions it is impossible for an employee to consent to be paid less than minimum wage. If the WOTC judges were employees, they were de facto entitled to receive minimum wage, breaks, overtime, as stipulated in the applicable labor codes. That's...really not up for debate. The only real issue here is whether the judges were indeed de facto employees of WOTC.
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Post by HeadHunter on Mar 16, 2017 5:44:20 GMT
The only reason I mention contracts is because someone else alleged that they are "contractors". Again, there is no offer of employment implied in signing up for a demo team. As far as minimum wage laws, fringe benefits can count towards that compensation (which would, quite likely, include the value of material compensation). Also, you may be surprised to learn that there is no federal regulation requiring breaks or meal periods to be provided of any particular length or after any particular amount of hours. And there are also exceptions for piece work, per diem, commissioned, and exempt employees. And, of course, an employer is never obligated to provide any form of compensation beyond hours worked - so if an employee only works sporadically, they must only be compensated for actual hours worked. An interesting note in the Fair Labor Standards Act which may have some bearing depending on judicial interpretation of the circumstances: and from the Code of Federal Regulations:
One final thing to consider: If the courts find that these individuals are, indeed, employees, then they will be retroactively liable for reporting the value of compensation received as income. So, yes, if you received, say, $2000 in merchandise last year and failed to report it when filing your taxes? Guess who's subject to penalties? Greed can come back to bite you on the ass if you're not careful.
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Post by Stone of Menoth on Mar 16, 2017 5:49:01 GMT
PP is draconian in their decisions more and more. In this day and age where some games (look at marvel heroes and path of exile as good examples) have increased their community communication, somehow pp is going backwards. i am personally pissed off at their decision to get rid of the faction forums and even moreso at their blocking of threads that they don`t wanna answer.
p.s. swampmist.........no offense. But i am not panicking but its fact that trust in pp is growing more and more thin. Mk3 not being ready. to me no big deal. i don`t expect perfection. non communication however im not ok with. P.s. Forever remember the key note as the beginning of horrid decisions on their part and nothing more then cowardly silence vs their critics.
p.s. i am probably one of the oldest players. i started a month into mk1. and unless something strange happens i will keep playing. but i will say they are fraying my desire to give them my money slowly (reminiscent of that other miniature wargame company). Once upon a time GW had all my money. then overnight (literally) i sold 3 huge warmachine armies to never spend another dime. Something else comes along and PP will face the same thing.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Mar 16, 2017 6:01:27 GMT
lots of interesting legal stuff As I said, the US is not my jurisdiction of expertise, so you may well be right. I'm a little shocked by how little you guys have by way of workers rights and labor standards on the federal level. I knew the US ranked as one of the worst developed countries in terms of labor standards, but what you've described is...pretty bad. Glad I live where I do.
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Post by HeadHunter on Mar 16, 2017 6:27:34 GMT
Well, keep in mind the Tenth Amendment to our Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively". Meaning that states may enact labor legislation that provides a higher minimum wage, for example, or other labor standards more exceed the federally mandated minimum requirements.
Many states offer a higher minimum wage. Some states do require breaks and meal periods after a certain number of hours worked, or require paid leave hours for things such as donating blood. Some require employers to provide a stipend for maintenance of required uniforms. It can differ from state to state, but in a case such as this one, the federal requirements are uniformly applicable.
But you're not wrong - the USA has pretty deplorable labor standards. Our work weeks are longer than many other nations (40 hours is the de facto standard but many salaried employees may work 50-60 hours), as far as I recall there's no federal legislation specifically mandating paid (or even unpaid) vacation, though there is some restriction on total number of hours one can be required to work in a one or two week pay period and a maximum number of days that can be worked without a mandatory day off - though those might also vary from state to state. The end result is a lot of stress-related injury and lost productivity when workers get burned out or require intermittent or ongoing leave time do to physical or mental illness resulting from excessive work demands.
In the 33 years I've been in the work force, I've seen a lot of "labor saving" innovations in the workplace - both technological and procedural. Has this led to a shorter work week or easier work? Quite the contrary - no we're expected to do more work per hour than we ever did in the 1980s, because employers see that it's possible to do more work in an hour than ever before. Work weeks remain the same length and benefits are cut to save money. Most workplaces are understaffed because labor costs are the most closely managed expense - employers want to have just enough people to do the forecasted work. Problem is, labor forecasts are no more reliable than weather forecasts. This is common even in crucial industries such as health care. This leads to increased turnover, which places a greater burden on the remaining employees, who must do more work to cover the vacancies. New hires are brought on board but there is a "revolving door" effect so the situation never improves. All that really happens is burnout and a dilution of experience and the talent pool. Bring overseas outsourcing into the equation, and it gets even worse. I think America's #1 export is jobs. If a job doesn't require the employee to be physically present at the point of customer interaction, many companies will contract overseas to handle the business - whether it's telephone or online service, fulfillment, manufacture, etc. The erosion of the American Dream continues to accelerate to the point where one income is no longer sufficient to provide for a family so child rearing becomes an additional expense.
So, yeah, I won't disagree. The USA is probably one of the worst places to work among First World nations. Obviously we've got it a lot better than underdeveloped nations, but considering our relative wealth and overall standard of living as a nation, it could and should be a lot better.
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Post by Gauner on Mar 16, 2017 21:30:53 GMT
I'm a little late to this conversation, but I would be very reluctant to believe that there was any motivation behind PP's decision to terminate the PG program other than a desire to avoid any increase in their exposure to liability under the federal minimum wage and various states' employment laws. While there is little they can do to avoid liability for what they have already done (ignorance of the law is *not* a defense), they can certainly avoid *increasing* the exposure that would result from keeping the PG program in place.
The plaintiffs in the WOTC case certainly have a pretty strong argument that they should have been treated as employees. We do not have a laissez faire economy, so the fact that a person might *want* to work for little or no compensation is of no matter. Employers are not allowed to employ someone for less than the minimum statutory wages and benefits (whether federal or state). In fact, in some jurisdictions the damages for failure to pay wages are mandated by law to include a punitive component (i.e. treble damages in some cases) and can result in criminal charges. If you were in management at PP and your lawyer told you that you could potentially serve jail time because of non-payment of wages from the PG program, what would you do?
I can also understand why they gave reasons for their termination of the program that didn't mention the WOTC case. They didn't want any reference to that case to make it look like an admission of guilt. I would be very surprised if their attorneys told them anything other than to cancel the program immediately and to not mention the WOTC case.
I think that under these circumstances, PP has done everything that can be reasonably be expected of them in terminating the PG program. I very much suspect that PP did not *want* to terminate the program, but that they listened to their lawyers and realized that the threat of liability was far too great for them to continue it. It sucks for everyone involved, but this is the legal environment that we live in. There are probably a great number of situations in which these legal restrictions make much more sense, but legislators can't always think of every possible exception and oftentimes otherwise good laws result in unintended collateral damage.
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Post by HeadHunter on Mar 16, 2017 23:17:08 GMT
Whether or not they're entitled to wages, I can't imagine a single law that would entitle them to most benefits. And of course those wages (including the material compensation that counts against monetary wage) would be subject to withholding, including Social Security and short-term disability. But given the nature and frequency of their work, it would be pretty hard for someone to file a claim.
And I'm sure, if the courts rule that these judges are employees, they'd be subject to the guidelines for existing regular employees. I'd be surprised if WotC doesn't have policies for attendance, for instance.
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Post by Sirbrokensword on Mar 17, 2017 1:04:47 GMT
Again, there's no way this was about the wotc suit. If their lawyer advised them to shut down the PG program right away, and not admit to why, then How did they have an already done cad draft of the PG models? They ignored legal advice and waited till they could design a model? of course not.
Furthermore, any lawyer advising you to anger the people you legally wronged, instead of working something out with them is a terrible lawyer. If the Wotc case comes in favor of the Judges, ( and it will, the law is quite clear)then PP might be liable to pay it's pg's back pay for every event and demo they ever ran for the company. That's not the kinda thing you take chances with, you don't poke a sleeping bear. Honestly I doubt PP has any clue about what's going on with Wotc.
PP closed the PG program for the same reason as the forums. They don't think they need us veterans anymore. I guess we'll see who's right.
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Post by javaman21011 on Mar 17, 2017 1:17:34 GMT
Late to this conversation, but I am curious now.. Without company backing that's not going to happen often any more. But few companies, if any, are going to actually employ someone to go from store to store doing demos. It's just not going to happen. But why not pay someone to do this? I mean in the Seattle-metro area there are basically a half dozen legitimately large game stores that could host a official representative to do demos. Why wouldn't a company hire a professional demo-dude and just send him around the metro area? Minimum wage him, or make him a day laborer or part-time employee? Doesn't seem like that much of a back-breaking investment to me.
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Post by gunmageintraining on Mar 17, 2017 1:18:50 GMT
Again, there's no way this was about the wotc suit. If their lawyer advised them to shut down the PG program right away, and not admit to why, then How did they have an already done cad draft of the PG models? They ignored legal advice and waited till they could design a model? of course not. Furthermore, any lawyer advising you to anger the people you legally wronged, instead of working something out with them is a terrible lawyer. If the Wotc case comes in favor of the Judges, ( and it will, the law is quite clear)then PP might be liable to pay it's pg's back pay for every event and demo they ever ran for the company. That's not the kinda thing you take chances with, you don't poke a sleeping bear. Honestly I doubt PP has any clue about what's going on with Wotc. PP closed the PG program for the same reason as the forums. They don't think they need us veterans anymore. I guess we'll see who's right. I think your being a bit willfully oblivious. PG was a very successful program. PGs ran events, recruited new people and all in all promoted the business to a very large degree. The cost to run them was marginal at best relative to the value of services they provided. A few PG-specific models CAD designs? That's nothing, and definitely not evidence that the decision wasn't sudden and immediate in light of the WotC case. Of course they took into account the WotC case, it's of direct and immediate concern and a definitely close parallel to their relationship with the PGs. If anything, the latest model was probably being designed for awhile, as that's a never-ending process and they decided to continue it as a measure of good faith, or something to hopefully stave off any sort of PG backlash. Killing off their forums didn't make any reasonable amount of business sense, but I could see the arguments for it. I don't subscribe to their logic as it reeks heavily of upper management penny-pinching but I could possibly devil's advocate a few reasons. Killing off their PG program? The Pros/Cons don't match up by any reasonable standard unless you add in the possible decision on WotC. If anything, they've probably been watching the case and talking with their lawyers for awhile and since they see which way it's going, they are taking pro-active steps to curb their liability moving forward. That it times up with their forum purge is probably more bad luck than intent. Unfortunately, that's one of the major problems and will hurt them severely moving forward. Purging the forums could probably have been managed, or at least mitigated if they still had a dedicated and involved PG team. The blowback wouldn't have been nearly as severe and local communities of players would still have dedicated foci to work with and around. Killing both at the same time though? That's a double-punch that could well doom the company. If they had spaced the two events out by months, they may have been able to get away with it as the anger from one fades, but to do both simultaneously? It's not unreasonable to say that they've definitely driven away quite a few players and severely weakened their ability to draw in new blood.
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Post by Sirbrokensword on Mar 17, 2017 1:55:51 GMT
Again, it's not a legally smart decision, so, if this is based on the lawsuit, they need a new lawyer. I doubt they thought this through though. It's not an "admission" to say "hey guys, our lawyer advises us there might be some legal issues with how the PG program is run, sorry, thanks for all the effort."
PP has bought into their own hype. GW did this too, when they disbanded the rogue trader program because they thought they were big enough to not need it.
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Post by HeadHunter on Mar 17, 2017 2:46:41 GMT
But why not pay someone to do this? Why wouldn't a company hire a professional demo-dude and just send him around the metro area? Minimum wage him, or make him a day laborer or part-time employee? Doesn't seem like that much of a back-breaking investment to me. Because few people would do that job for minimum wage, and they'd also have to cover the travel expenses, etc. And the actual wage is half (or less) of the cost of an employee. The system they had was working - people who weren't bound by anything other than a desire to spread the game, being rewarded for their effort with product. It worked for along time, not just for PP but for a number of game companies before. A few companies have tired what you suggest and it's clearly not sustainable or more companies would do it. So it's clear that they can't justify the expense based on the return. As for allegations as to why PP dropped the Press Gang? Ask yourself - who benefits? There's only one obvious answer - Privateer Press. So the next question is - how? Financial savings? Seriously, how much could it possibly cost them to compensate volunteers with product? All it costs PP is a token staff to administer the program and actual cost of goods (not MSRP). So PP saves almost nothing, dollar-wise, eliminating the program. What do they lose? Goodwill, customer confidence, potential reputation and an easy way to promote their products. Considering all that, what possible motivation could they have to do this? There's only one inevitable conclusion - legal reasons. It's not justified by a cost-benefit analysis, so it's clear that PP saw the writing on the wall, whether they knew of this case or perhaps expected that such a thing might transpire even without it.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Mar 17, 2017 3:45:34 GMT
Again, it's not a legally smart decision, so, if this is based on the lawsuit, they need a new lawyer. I doubt they thought this through though. It's not an "admission" to say "hey guys, our lawyer advises us there might be some legal issues with how the PG program is run, sorry, thanks for all the effort." PP has bought into their own hype. GW did this too, when they disbanded the rogue trader program because they thought they were big enough to not need it. PP closed the PG program for the same reason as the forums. They don't think they need us veterans anymore. I guess we'll see who's right.
It's not an "admission" to say "hey guys, our lawyer advises us there might be some legal issues with how the PG program is run, sorry, thanks for all the effort."
Really?!? Do you have that much salt-crusted butt hurt that you don't realize the silliness of what you are saying?
First off, yes, Privateer Press needs every player that they can get. The more players that play the game, from fresh-meat newbies to hardened geezers, maintains the synergy of people playing and generates sales. PP closing down the forums was not an effort to personally insult *you* or anyone else, nor to silence the blabbery that was going on *their* forums, or any other form of affront that can be conjured up.
It was a business decision. Nothing more, nothing less.
And actually, yes, any statement that in any way alludes to the possibility of a legal liability would have effectively constituted an admission. While it would not have been a "We screwed up and made this mistake" kind of admission, any statement that says "there might be some legal issues" is actually saying "yes, there are legal issues that someone might be able to pin on us and we are trying to cover our @$$ before it gets blown off."
To everyone who is angry about how Privateer Press handled all of the forums change and the closure of the Press Gangers needs to remember the basics of staying out of legal trouble: 1) Admit nothing. 2) Deny everything. 3) Redirect attention in a friendlier direction. 4) After everything else, keep your mouth shut.
Take off your "this is GW all over again" glasses and take a look at what Privateer Press actually said, and what they did not say. These 2 big changes are not PP trying to stop paying attention to you as a customer, it is them paying attention to their bottom line and future.
Sorry you were offended.
But hey, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on Mar 17, 2017 10:20:01 GMT
Ok,I think I get it.
As I see it, the PGs are fans who approach PP and go "We wanna help you promote the game!" Nothing wrong with this.
PP could just give them moral support, saying "thanks so much, you rock!", and that would be fine.
But PP going "ok, if you agree to work for us, we will compensate you with models and make you our organised official representatives" is not ok, because that is basically the same as hiring staff and not paying them, which is illegal.
Makes sense I think.
It's interesting to me that all ccgs and miniature games I have played have had a promoter program just like the PGs. It seemed to be universal within the industry until now.
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