Content Production and Union Mentality

@ Stephanie: Great news!! I was praying for you. We are a lot alike Steph, neither of us have any tolerance for social injustice, and when it gets in our faces, we punch it in the mouth, knock it down and step over it to a better deal! 

It's great to have you back! I hope you enjoy the improvements. I think we are just days away from having all our dialog online and out of email. After this, it should be very smooth...Trish had a very legitimate complaint, that I think I finally rectified. 

I think Trish is going to be okay. I really feel like she has good intentions, she is just still holding on to a few bad ideas. I think with a little coaching from people like you and I, along with the rest of our team, she will be able to see how to get herself and her people out of the doldrums of slave wages. 

She doesn't strike me as stubborn, and she definitely has a thick enough skin to deal with my "directness" and doesn't vindictively counter-attack. So those three things have won  my respect. 

@ Trish: I can tell you are a stickler for organization. I am too. In this biz, organization in communication and work processes can work wonders in improving the dollars per hour for content producers. But there is another form of organizing that can set the standard for earning that living wage once peak performance is achieved...That is the "Jimmy Hoffa" kind of organizing. You need to get your head and heart around this if we are going to work together...and I really hope we can! You said:

I did make up a new rate chart and have bumped my rates up that I will be paying the writers.  Not as much as you suggested, as unlike you I have established clientele who will need some notice and gradual increases, but I will work towards your suggested rates, as I believe the same as you do.

This model is not going to work. There will be no pyramids in our organization. I don't even consider myself a "boss" ...I only want to be considered the founder and organizer. I've set this thing up where I can be cut loose from the team as easily as Sally or Carol could, and you all can carry on without me. We are content producers who can earn $25 per hour if we are as capable as Martha. I'm trying to spread out the "management" responsibilities among all the content producers, by giving everyone who writes a specific "hat" to wear. I charge our clients a flat, 25% over what we pay ourselves (.03 per word) this should cover our overhead (including paying our CPs for the time they spend wearing their respective management hats) 

I'm somewhat new to the online content production industry. However, I spent twenty years in the construction business, doing public work in Rhode Island. Read "Prince of Providence" if you have trouble believing what I'm about to say. I've worked for corrupt politicians who were convicted felons, I've gotten myself in and out of extortion and bribery scams leaving one scammer in the back of an ambulance with my footprint on the side of his face, while I collected the money I was owed from his corrupt boss...otherwise, he was next. I paid union wages to my crew even though I wasn't officially a union shop. Gangsters, guns, knives, death threats,  fistfights, jail time, and general violence were all part of my career...which earned me as much as $3000 per week, proving that street smarts can be more valuable than a college education -and much less expensive. 

This writing gig is like a form of semi-retirement for me. However, I'll be damned if any computer geeks are going to get over on me or my crew. After all, I didn't let the Mayor of Providence or the Mafia fuck with me or mine. So, this is what we need to do if you want to get your fair share of our pie:

Tell your clientele that you and your team has joined an organization that is determined to earn a living wage for producing content. The new rate is .04 per word. If they can't pay that rate they can go fuck themselves. If they try to recruit "scabs" to give them content at $1.25/ 500 words, then this organization that you just signed up with is going to throw a big monkey wrench into their works -after we smack 'em over the head with it. It will be a waste of time for them to continue to try to keep these slaves on their plantation, because sooner than later, they will be working for us at .03 per word. The sooner they adjust their "rate charts" the sooner we all can begin to enjoy a living wage for our work and steady profits for them. It's about time for a new concept: Trickle up economics.

Of course you can spin that to make it more polite...Or, just copy and paste it to them, and let the goosebumps on their scrotums motivate them to do the right thing for all parties concerned. 

Now I understand that there are different levels of talent and abilities. I can adjust my "no pyramid" policy in this way: If each content producer on our team wants to take on up to three "apprentices" or "ghosts" then I think that could open some doors of opportunity to those just starting out, and there could be a mutual benefit for the CP who trains them. We would need to adjust the parameters. There has to be a limit to how much less the apprentice earns, and the amount of time they stay in this role.

I'm going to take this discussion out of email, and post it on our new blog...Please, everyone respond with comments there. Thanks! 

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Stephanie Mayberry <fotojunkie67@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Kevin. Sorry I dropped out for a bit. You may remember I was fighting discrimination and bullying in my workplace.

Well, my boss's boss's boss asked me to come work for him! I not only got out of that bad situation, I got a BETTER job!

I am writing SOPs for another part of FEMA right now. I am a technical writer, so this is right in my element.

I have company this weekend, but after that I should be able to help out with the writing. This has all been a whirlwind!

Oh, I don't know if I like Trish. Her letter has a several typos and her paragraphs are way too long. However, the thing that really disturbed me was her reference to her "disabled" writers in her second paragraph. She seemed to slam them. I hope I was reading it wrong, but it appeared to me that she was saying something bad about them. >:-(

It was kinda offensive. She won't be in a leadership position, will she? I just left a bunch of folks who slammed me for my disability.

Steph

(PS  If I missed a letter in this email it is because I have a new keyboard and I am not used to it. Sorry in advance.)

On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 2:04 PM, Kevin Leland <klleland@gmail.com> wrote:

Check out this new post. Also check out the previous post, Money and Time Management, where all work will bill input by CPs for billing and payment. you will see the link on the side. 

Please follow this blog, and set it to alert you by email of new posts and comments if you are on the Bangari Team! I so want to get away from email. This is our primary communication platform. Our Content Producer platform. We can work out all the final details of setting this business up, and then we will all be on our way to earning a steady $25 per hour for producing content.

Thanks everyone! Your feedback and input will be greatly appreciated, as well as all your hard work on this latest and greatest project. If we can end this with a happy client, there will be a lot more of this work coming our way, without so much management hassle!

Kevin

--

Shop at Amazon!