California has many of laws on the books which grandfather workers under various statutes of de facto employment. Even contracts can be voided. No contract is necessary for an employment relationship to exist.
That’s a point in favor of reddit, but a small one. As my company’s labor lawyer enjoys saying, “You can’t contract around the law.” Meaning, an agreement can be nullified by a court that finds the agreement is in violation of a law.
Right, but you also can’t create a work agreement where one was explicitly denied. It’s like mowing your neighbors lawn then asking them to pay you, but they told you they wouldn’t pay you if you did it before you started. It’s the same with the 3rd party app devs too. While I think reddits actions are insane and detrimental to the health of the site, they are fully in their right to deny those devs access to their API and their site as a whole.
It’s a bit more complex than that. Reddit hires staff to do moderation. If moderation was done solely by users, and never by paid staff, your analogy would hold more water. However, because there is a mix of paid and unpaid labor doing the same tasks, there is enough gray area that a court could weigh in either direction (although I think it is unlikely that one would find for the mods, personally).
A better analogy would be that reddit had a landscaping business, and hired some workers to do landscaping, and you just tagged along and did unpaid work for several years. Sure, the owner did tell you he wasn’t ever going to pay you for your work, and you agreed to that. But the owner sold and profited off the labor you provided alongside his paid laborers. He did this knowingly.
There may be a case there.
But it this case, it’s more like… you’re mowing your neighbor’s lawn at his invitation, you have to follow his guidelines or be fired, and when you mow his lawn he saves money because he doesn’t have to have the lawn care service come.
You don’t need a contract to sue someone in California. There are labor laws meant to cover situations that are inequitable or unfair. In my mind, having mods do all this work for the benefit of reddit (eg. Free labor) is unfair and seemingly rises to a level that should be investigated.
they don’t have a contract, they’re screwed.
California has many of laws on the books which grandfather workers under various statutes of de facto employment. Even contracts can be voided. No contract is necessary for an employment relationship to exist.
and reddit has it in their TOS that no one who is a mod is an employee of reddit.
That’s a point in favor of reddit, but a small one. As my company’s labor lawyer enjoys saying, “You can’t contract around the law.” Meaning, an agreement can be nullified by a court that finds the agreement is in violation of a law.
Right, but you also can’t create a work agreement where one was explicitly denied. It’s like mowing your neighbors lawn then asking them to pay you, but they told you they wouldn’t pay you if you did it before you started. It’s the same with the 3rd party app devs too. While I think reddits actions are insane and detrimental to the health of the site, they are fully in their right to deny those devs access to their API and their site as a whole.
It’s a bit more complex than that. Reddit hires staff to do moderation. If moderation was done solely by users, and never by paid staff, your analogy would hold more water. However, because there is a mix of paid and unpaid labor doing the same tasks, there is enough gray area that a court could weigh in either direction (although I think it is unlikely that one would find for the mods, personally).
A better analogy would be that reddit had a landscaping business, and hired some workers to do landscaping, and you just tagged along and did unpaid work for several years. Sure, the owner did tell you he wasn’t ever going to pay you for your work, and you agreed to that. But the owner sold and profited off the labor you provided alongside his paid laborers. He did this knowingly.
There may be a case there.
and if your neighbor hires a lawn care service, you should be paid?
But it this case, it’s more like… you’re mowing your neighbor’s lawn at his invitation, you have to follow his guidelines or be fired, and when you mow his lawn he saves money because he doesn’t have to have the lawn care service come.
You don’t need a contract to sue someone in California. There are labor laws meant to cover situations that are inequitable or unfair. In my mind, having mods do all this work for the benefit of reddit (eg. Free labor) is unfair and seemingly rises to a level that should be investigated.
yeah, but you need one to win.