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Post by jisidro on Mar 17, 2017 10:48:56 GMT
MtG took it to a whole new level. When you read the summary(?) of the lawsuit you see they mention bad working/volunteering conditions. Food breaks, etc... This actually sounds familiar. I played a lot of MtG a long time ago and while Pro Tours had the professional feel, GP looked brutal on the volunteers. There was a core pro team and then it was local guys helping out for product. They worked a lot for a black/white shirt, some entitlement and grossly overvalued promos/product.
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Post by gunmageintraining on Mar 17, 2017 13:14:18 GMT
MtG took it to a whole new level. When you read the summary(?) of the lawsuit you see they mention bad working/volunteering conditions. Food breaks, etc... This actually sounds familiar. I played a lot of MtG a long time ago and while Pro Tours had the professional feel, GP looked brutal on the volunteers. There was a core pro team and then it was local guys helping out for product. They worked a lot for a black/white shirt, some entitlement and grossly overvalued promos/product. This is why I'm not really sure the situations are all that parallel. the WotC people were treated much more like employees with excessive requirements and frankly standards that probably violate worker rights laws. PGs were given pretty free reign in how they chose to run things, if they wanted to run them at all. I mean... the parallels are there, but it's a considerably different relationship.
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Post by copperflame on Mar 17, 2017 15:18:08 GMT
Agreed - but all it takes is one greedy lawyer and a uncertain judge to hurt a company. It makes me sad.
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Post by jisidro on Mar 17, 2017 15:28:31 GMT
Agreed - but all it takes is one greedy lawyer and a uncertain judge to hurt a company. It makes me sad.
Wizards is under Hasbro's umbrela:
excerpt from investor.hasbro.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=979849: Hasbro Reports Revenue, Operating Profit and Net Earnings Growth for Second Quarter 2016
• Second quarter 2016 revenues grew 10% to $878.9 million; Absent a negative $17.7 million impact of foreign exchange, second quarter 2016 revenues grew 12%; • Second quarter 2016 revenues grew 11% in the U.S. and Canada segment and 11% in the International segment; Absent the negative $17.0 million impact of foreign exchange, International segment revenues increased 15%; The Entertainment and Licensing segment increased 9%; • Growth in all categories: Boys, Games, Girls and Preschool; Franchise Brand revenues up 3%; NERF and PLAY-DOH revenues posted double-digit growth; Partner Brand revenues grew 15% primarily driven by STAR WARS, DISNEY PRINCESS and DISNEY'S FROZEN; • Operating profit increased 12% and net earnings increased 25% to $52.1 million or $0.41 per diluted share; • Company returned $85.8 million to shareholders in the quarter; $63.9 million in dividends and $21.9 million in share repurchases.
If they decide to fight this, good luck. I hear lawyers have really good theme lists.
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Post by javaman21011 on Mar 17, 2017 20:00:29 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. But in today's modernizing (for better or worse) economy where people do things like Uber, Lyft, or TaskRabbit... where everyone is basically an independent contractor, how much expense is it really? Can't PP create something like Uber and only pay for time that the staff member is on sight (at the game store)? Why would a company necessarily have to pay for travel expenses? Most companies I've worked for don't count commuting as a travel expense. And most salesmen we interact with only work on commissions, which is a non-travel situation. We don't pay them for traveling to the sites, we just pay for the results of the work.
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Post by Permutation Servitor on Mar 17, 2017 20:18:54 GMT
Currently Lyfyt, Uber and similar are fighting a rearguard action for the same fight. Their "contractors" look a lot like "employees" as far as the law is concerned and they may lose that fight just like WotC did.
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Post by javaman21011 on Mar 17, 2017 20:48:08 GMT
Currently Lyfyt, Uber and similar are fighting a rearguard action for the same fight. Their "contractors" look a lot like "employees" as far as the law is concerned and they may lose that fight just like WotC did. Aye they are, but i thought the suits were only brought up because Lyft/Uber were starting to short-change their contractors. If you reduce peoples' incomes they tend to get angry.
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Lanz
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Lanz on Mar 18, 2017 0:05:32 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. I don't know why this can't all be classified as Volunteer work. Volunteers aren't obligated for compensation, that's the point, so PGs as volunteers would be people who aren't expected to receive any kind of compensation at all, but the occational free perk they get is just a show of thanks from the company.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Mar 18, 2017 1:11:49 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. I don't know why this can't all be classified as Volunteer work. Volunteers aren't obligated for compensation, that's the point, so PGs as volunteers would be people who aren't expected to receive any kind of compensation at all, but the occational free perk they get is just a show of thanks from the company. If a Privateer Press employee walks up to you in the middle of a gaming convention and hands you a free PP gaming miniature for no reason - that's a free perk.
If a Privateer Press employee walks up to you at the end of a gaming convention and hands you a PP gaming miniature as a show of thanks for helping to run a tournament - that can be considered compensation under the law, if the worker knew or had a reasonable expectation that the "show of thanks" would be coming.
The only way that the free miniature could be considered a gift of thanks would be if there was absolutely no compensation offered and no compensation expected for working a tournament before the start of the tournament.
But take a look at how the Press Gangers operated: The PG would work a convention, hold a local tournament at the FLGS, spend a couple of hours demoing Warmahordes, or whatever, and they would earn points. Those points could then be traded in for free product. PGs were never unpaid volunteers that didn't expect any kind of compensation, but instead of cash they received a fake unit of currency (the points) that they exchanged for PP product.
You can express it with different words or in different ways, but the law will break it down to very basic core elements.
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Lanz
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Lanz on Mar 18, 2017 1:13:29 GMT
I don't know why this can't all be classified as Volunteer work. Volunteers aren't obligated for compensation, that's the point, so PGs as volunteers would be people who aren't expected to receive any kind of compensation at all, but the occational free perk they get is just a show of thanks from the company. If a Privateer Press employee walks up to you in the middle of a gaming convention and hands you a free PP gaming miniature for no reason - that's a free perk.
If a Privateer Press employee walks up to you at the end of a gaming convention and hands you a PP gaming miniature as a show of thanks for helping to run a tournament - that can be considered compensation under the law, if the worker knew or had a reasonable expectation that the "show of thanks" would be coming.
The only way that the free miniature could be considered a gift of thanks would be if there was absolutely no compensation offered and no compensation expected for working a tournament before the start of the tournament.
But take a look at how the Press Gangers operated: The PG would work a convention, hold a local tournament at the FLGS, spend a couple of hours demoing Warmahordes, or whatever, and they would earn points. Those points could then be traded in for free product. PGs were never unpaid volunteers that didn't expect any kind of compensation, but instead of cash they received a fake unit of currency (the points) that they exchanged for PP product.
You can express it with different words or in different ways, but the law will break it down to very basic core elements.
Did PGs expect stuff like Gorman Di Sea Wulf? What were PGs getting as expected compensation to begin with?
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Post by Blargaliscious on Mar 18, 2017 3:22:12 GMT
If a Privateer Press employee walks up to you in the middle of a gaming convention ... (snip) ... that they exchanged for PP product.
You can express it with different words or in different ways, but the law will break it down to very basic core elements.
Did PGs expect stuff like Gorman Di Sea Wulf? What were PGs getting as expected compensation to begin with? Did PGs expect stuff like Gorman Di Sea Wulf?
No, obviously Privateer Press was good to the Press Gangers and did give them some unexpected gifts. I think that shows that PP is, at its heart, a good bunch of people. It's part of the reason why I jumped on Sir Brokensword for his statements.
And keep in mind that I am a huge fan of Privateer Press - they have done something that GW failed to do after a while: make me happy.
But I will call things like I see them, and I think the Press Gang program had within its methodology elements that the US legal system could potentially construe as an employer - employee relationship. I think that relationship made them vulnerable to lawsuit, hence why they shut it down. Even though PP seems to have treated the Press Gangers well enough that they wouldn't sue, there was still a vulnerability.
What were PGs getting as expected compensation to begin with?
Allow me to restate what I had typed above - Take a look at how the Press Gangers operated:
1) The PG would work a convention, hold a local tournament at the FLGS, spend a couple of hours demoing Warmahordes, or whatever, and they would earn points. The points should be considered to be like cash, because they could be "spent" to "purchase" PP products.
2) The points could then be traded in for free product.
PGs were never unpaid volunteers that didn't expect any kind of compensation because they expected to receive points.
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Post by warriorofiron on Mar 18, 2017 4:54:19 GMT
The thing about it is the laws for volunteers for for profit companies get very weird, I'm no lawyer, and I may be wrong, but the way I understand it is under the laws at a certain point you must be considered an employee, (pay and other benefits), and that is what the WotC law suit is saying. It's really weird and their is a grey line in which can be easily be overstepped. Again I may be wrong but that is how I understand it.
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Post by HeadHunter on Mar 18, 2017 5:56:43 GMT
Can't PP create something like Uber and only pay for time that the staff member is on sight (at the game store)? Why would a company necessarily have to pay for travel expenses? Most companies I've worked for don't count commuting as a travel expense. And most salesmen we interact with only work on commissions, which is a non-travel situation. We don't pay them for traveling to the sites, we just pay for the results of the work. A: That's what the Press Gang already was. They were compensated with product, but that still counts as pay. B: We're talking about these people being treated as employees, not contractors. They're already essentially contractors, for most intents and purposes (except, you know, without an actual contract). For employees, Federal labor law requires that employers count time to travel from their regular workplace to another job site as paid hours. We're not talking about the average person travelling between work and home. I'm sure you noticed from my previous posts that I'm somewhat familiar with all this. It's out there if you want to look it over, you'd be surprised. The Press Gangers were already per diem/piece work/contractors... whatever you care to call them. They're jobbers, just like an Uber driver. They do demos when and where they choose, without obligation. But the WotC judges want to be treated as more, as employees. They want cash compensation and the other things that come from being on the payroll. Believe me, that gets way more expensive than you'd imagine.
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Post by bakemono on Mar 18, 2017 7:57:02 GMT
Except that dropping them like a bad habit doesn't in anyway remove their ability to demand that compensation. It does, in fact, merely increase the probability that some of them will ask for it. It was simply foolish.
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Post by Permutation Servitor on Mar 18, 2017 11:19:33 GMT
Except that dropping them like a bad habit doesn't in anyway remove their ability to demand that compensation. It does, in fact, merely increase the probability that some of them will ask for it. It was simply foolish. The law looks differently on people who were doing their best to be lawful and those who willingly broke the law. It won't change guilt or innocence but it might impact sentencing. What was PP supposed to do? Continue breaking the law in the hopes that a PG wouldn't sue? It was the right legal and ethical choice, despite its unpopularity, or execution.
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