Charging freelancers to get paid?

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WTF

McGraw Hill (MH) is a multibillion-dollar educational publishing company, with thousands of employees and offices around the world. Beginning in October of last year, the company instituted a new policy for all of its freelancers and independent contractors — they are now required to pay a fee of 2.2% every time they file an invoice through the company’s invoicing system, called Fieldglass. (There is no other system, meaning the fee is mandatory.) In other words, if a freelancer does $1,000 of work for MH, they will be paid only $978. The other $22 will be taken as an ​“administrative fee.”

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That’s insane. I’ve freelanced for McGraw Hill before, educational writing is what I do.

I’m sure many people will feel they don’t have the money to sue. I hope someone is able to push back.

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Holy fucking shit.
(This is one of my company’s major competitors. I probably know people who still work here.)

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it is worth raising awareness about this within the industry, even on the sly. I found out about it from my aunt who is a professional illustrator for 40+ years and works with the artist legal guild in NYC.

They’re trying to claim it’s “standard practice” when, it really definitely is not.

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It’s not really illegal, unfortunately. They need outside pressure to drop it.

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Oh hey, I did not know you were also in educational publishing.
Uh… we don’t work for the same company, do we?!? :wink:

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I don’t know why any reasonably successful freelancer would agree to this?! The best part about freelancing is you don’t have to deal with ridiculous bullshit. Plenty o’ fish in the sea and all that.

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The actual fuck? That is wage theft. Think I’ll let them know I won’t be requiring any of their textbooks while that’s in place. Think I’ll bring it up on our department meeting where we pick textbooks for our freshman courses. Think I’ll tell McGraw Hill about the meeting, too.

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Checked all of Kiddo’s books and one of them is McGraw Hill, I have reached out on Facebook to a school board member to let her know since we’re both in a local education group. I’d imagine we’re approaching the time of year when they’re starting to think about textbooks for next year (although @TrisPrior and @anon51297825 would know better) so I guess it’s good that this is coming out now and not in like September.

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Some school districts do adoptions yearly, some like every 5-years, and some sadly, even less.

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I thought it was illegal to make people pay to claim their wages. Like why they can’t pay you on high fee gift cards.

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No. My company is not a major competitor to McGraw Hill. I work at one of the large non-profit assessment companies.

If your company has a big branch in Iowa, I think I know who they are though.

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Alas, these are independent contractors, so they don’t have any real protections.

But also, that shouldn’t be legal…

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I would tell them I don’t work for companies that are so unsuccessful they need me to subsidize their payroll department. I hope they all walk.

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Yea, and/or get the Writer’s Union to negotiate with them on their behalf.

What really gets me is the “standard industry practice”. What an actual lie.

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Nope, we do not have a big branch in Iowa. And PHEW now I do not need to nuke all of my posts here that talk about work, out of fear that you’re actually one of my superiors! LOL

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Don’t worry. I’m no one’s superior. SIGH.

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It’s like the digital version of the company store…

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Oh I am sharing this everywhere. Half the people I know are educators and/or labor folks.

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I feel like the freelancers need to tack on a 5% administration fee to all invoices for dealing with their bullshit invoicing system.

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