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A former website manager for SB Nation recently sued the site’s owners, Vox Media, alleging she and other contributors to SB Nation’s network of websites weren’t properly compensated for their work, violating minimum wage and overtime laws.
SB Nation forms a network of more than 300 individual websites for professional and college sports teams. It became a common source for many fans to obtain news or analysis over other outlets because of the sites’ near constant updating of content, producing large volumes of posts by local bloggers or independent journalists. SB Nation creates this network of sites through contracts with individuals and local “site managers” and then site managers have various degrees of autonomy to to produce content that generates ad revenue for SB Nation (Vox Media). SB Nation has always claimed these site managers are independent contractors, not employees, and the hours they choose to work are voluntary. They contend this is merely a hobby for many of these managers and writers. And this is why the site managers receive such little money, often times about $600 a month.
The problem is recent reports show SB Nation’s demands on site managers and other content creators appear less like a relationship between a hands-off company and part-time sports enthusiasts, and more like an employer making demands of employees. See Deadspin’s How SB Nation Profits Off an Army of Exploited Workers. SB Nation management constantly pressures managers to produce more and more content, and reach page view quotas, and site managers are threatened with being replaced if these expectations aren’t met. Also, SB Nation is careful to control the content of the various sites, with non-team-friendly posts being discouraged and writers summarily fired for offensive posts.
The plaintiff in Bradley v. Vox, Cheryl Bradley, was a former site manager of SB Nation’s Mile High Hockey. She says she regularly worked regularly 30-40 hours a week, but was only paid about $125 a month. This violates the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) because minimum wage and overtime laws prevent employers from taking advantage of their employees like this.
The question, then, is whether Ms. Bradley and her co-workers are employees or independent contractors. It’s likely every site manager or writer paid by SB Nation for their team pages signed Independent Contractor agreements. These types of agreements constantly repeat that the contractor is not an employee and that the contractor is free to complete the obligations in the contract in whatever method they desire. And this is what SB Nation will point at over and over again. “Look! She signed this agreement. Right here. She initialed these pages and she knew this is what she was signing up for!” But that isn’t the only thing courts or a jury will use to determine whether an employee-employer relationship exists.
Additional relevant factors include the amount of control SB Nation had over these workers, whether the workers performed an integral part of the SB Nation’s business, SB Nation’s hiring and firing power, and several others. See U. S. Department of Labor Fact Sheet – Is a Worker an Employee or Independent Contractor?
Employers have frequently tried to eliminate costs and risks by paying “independent contractors” instead of employees. This practice received greater scrutiny from the Obama Administration, but Trump Administration officials have signaled a change and employers should expect greater deference going forward. This FLSA litigation will be interesting to watch because so many companies responsible for creating online content utilize the independent contractor model, often relying on low-paid or even free labor to generate page views for advertiser revenue.
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