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Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

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Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#371

Post by supernova87a »

kelnos wrote: post #355
supernova87a wrote: post #122

This will be an unpopular opinion, but I am feeling chatty today. As long as safety + working conditions are not cruel and unusual, and someone is willing to work for $0, why are you trying to stop (or hide) that fact? Someone willing to work for less (or for free) is offering a bargain to incentivize giving him/her the business or the benefit of experience instead of more $. You restricting them from doing that does…

> You just hide the problem by saying that it's unjust to pay so low a wage and not allow people to do it. We have minimum wage laws because we as a society have decided that some wages are too low to be just. "It's a volunteer position" exploits a loophole in that. There are plenty of things like this in labor law, like mandatory breaks of a certain length after working for a certain amount of time. We recognize tha…

What is "predatory"? What is "just"? Justice for some equals unemployment for others. Is that just?

If safety and breaks are mandated, and someone is still willing to work for less, you're stopping them from bargaining to have a job for less pay, do you acknowledge that?

If "predatory" is agreeing to what someone wants to offer to take a job, why don't you tell the worker not to offer/participate?

Your stopping the "predatory" behavior has done nothing to alleviate the person's financial situation that causes them to consider agreeing to it.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#372

Post by supernova87a »

simonw wrote: post #229
supernova87a wrote: post #122

This will be an unpopular opinion, but I am feeling chatty today. As long as safety + working conditions are not cruel and unusual, and someone is willing to work for $0, why are you trying to stop (or hide) that fact? Someone willing to work for less (or for free) is offering a bargain to incentivize giving him/her the business or the benefit of experience instead of more $. You restricting them from doing that does…

The problem is that unpaid internships are a big contributor to ongoing economic inequality. In industries where jobs require experience, and that experience can only be obtained through unpaid internships, the end result is that people who can't afford to work for free for several months are prevented from entering that industry entirely.

No, I think unpaid internships simply reflect the underlying situation and position of people. Restricting who can get the internships or how much those jobs have to pay will have less than a drop in the bucket's effect on the underlying problem of wealth inequality.

If I sum up the position, it sounds to me like "I don't want to see people working for $0, or only the rich to have the opportunity to work for $0, so I will require the job to pay $15/hr". Well, you didn't solve the problem that people are willing to work for $0 with that solution.

Letting people offer what they want, on both sides, (I believe) is the freest way to have people decide and achieve what they want, as long as basic protections for safety, hours, conditions are met.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#373

Post by jakelazaroff »

RHSeeger wrote: post #308
jakelazaroff wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your college analogy doesn't make sense. Students are the "customers" of the college, not the workers. Or, to put it another way, they're paying for their professors' labor.

My point was that, just because they're doing work as an intern, that doesn't mean they are doing work they should necessarily get paid for. Both college and an internship are situations where - the junior individual (intern, student) is doing work - the junior individual expects to learn during the experience - the senior entity (college, company) is expected to put effort into making sure the junior has learning op…

The analogy falls apart here:

> the senior entity can expect the junior person to contribute less productivity to the company than a full employee

College students don't "contribute productivity" at all, because they don't have an employer/employee relationship with the school. The work they do is entirely orthogonal to the school's revenue. This comparison fundamentally does not make sense.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#374

Post by IanKerr »

supernova87a wrote: post #371
kelnos wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just hide the problem by saying that it's unjust to pay so low a wage and not allow people to do it. We have minimum wage laws because we as a society have decided that some wages are too low to be just. "It's a volunteer position" exploits a loophole in that. There are plenty of things like this in labor law, like mandatory breaks of a certain length after working for a certain amount of time. We recognize tha…

What is "predatory"? What is "just"? Justice for some equals unemployment for others. Is that just? If safety and breaks are mandated, and someone is still willing to work for less, you're stopping them from bargaining to have a job for less pay, do you acknowledge that? If "predatory" is agreeing to what someone wants to offer to take a job, why don't you tell the worker not to offer/participate? Your stopping the "…

In a world where employees and employers have equal bargaining power and knowledge what you're saying makes sense. Given the opportunity though, businesses will do their best to hire workers that they can pay as little as possible and work as much as possible. It's the natural state of profitability to tend towards such a situation. In general this means there's a tendency towards increased work for lesser or equal pay, fewer benefits, poorer working conditions, etc. etc. Without a force pushing back on businesses in the form of regulations they will continue the race to the bottom as that is the most profitable thing to do.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#375

Post by da_big_ghey »

fallingknife wrote: post #91
da_big_ghey wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unpaid intern are absolutely good. many i have known are starting this way, before they have plenty skills for to gain full pay internship. ban are stupid, stop your try to interfere with economy via government.

If they're not getting paid, it's not really part of the economy, is it?

money not only represent of value. credebility of work with experience have value also.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#376

Post by sushid »

walkon wrote: post #344
pavel_lishin wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it's the norm doesn't mean it's not predatory.

If someone makes you an offer and you say, "no" and they walk away, that isn't predatory.

What about predatory lending? Are payday loans not predatory?

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#377

Post by tpmx »

jsdwarf wrote: post #312

To all the folks who would do it "for the exposure": my partner volunteered as a graphic designer for a well-known European charity event that featured a former US president, known music groups and fashion designers as pro bono acts and had a live TV broadcast. She really liked to volunteer and we received free tickets for said event and definitely enjoyed it. She added the project to her CV, but unfortunately it had…

You're saying she should have made money from this charity event she volunteered for? Or just avoided it, because she didn't get any meaningful "exposure" out of it?

For the second time in this posting, as a (northern) European I'm quite puzzled about all of this. I think we may have wildly differing thoughts about what concepts like "volunteering" and "charity" mean.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#378

Post by supernova87a »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #352
supernova87a wrote: post #122

This will be an unpopular opinion, but I am feeling chatty today. As long as safety + working conditions are not cruel and unusual, and someone is willing to work for $0, why are you trying to stop (or hide) that fact? Someone willing to work for less (or for free) is offering a bargain to incentivize giving him/her the business or the benefit of experience instead of more $. You restricting them from doing that does…

Yours is the perfect example of predatory practices. Fair wages for fair work. Is that so hard of a concept to understand? It's this kind of attitude that workers are turning on trickle down and starting look at more as eat the rich.

I am more than a little skeptical of when other people determine what is "fair", other than the people directly involved in an agreement. As long as safety/other regulatory mandates are obeyed that make sure people aren't getting into something they can't foresee.

I doubt you've thought through fully what implications your "fair" produce. I would rather people determine that for themselves.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#379

Post by supernova87a »

calibas wrote: post #278
sixQuarks wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole idea of this being work for $0 is incorrect. The "pay" comes in the exposure and authority the photographer will build after doing this. If you're going to hire a wedding photographer, all things being equal, if one says they did the photos for a show that you are familiar with, or appeared in magazines you're familiar with - that is worth a great deal in marketing value. A smart photographer can bu…

>The "pay" comes in the exposure and authority the photographer will build after doing this. This is the line every questionable business uses when trying to get freelancers to work for free. It's well-known and despised.

If it's well-known, then why do people agree to it?

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#380

Post by petee »

aiisahik wrote: post #29

People who think this is predatory have clearly NOT worked in the TV / Film industry. Doing shit jobs for free in the hopes of getting some cred is the norm. Not right but not news. BTW just because it's going to be on Netflix doesn't mean Netflix is the employer. Netflix just buys the content. The staffing / contract decisions are made by the production company.

Actually this isn't the norm. It happens often with tiny budget shows or college films, but not Netflix or real productions (netflix is footing the bill on this one) And it's still predatory.

And if the rest of the show is shot union, photographers are covered work, so union or nobody works.

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