These American workers — cheap, disposable and isolated — worked through a company called Arise Virtual Solutions... - workers independentcontractors
Added up, she had spent about $1,000 for about eight months of training, unpaid.
Did the agent express genuine interest in helping? If so, he received 3.75 points. If he provided “complete information,” he received 7.1429 points. At an industry conference in February, Intuit’s top customer service executive noted that the company had had trouble achieving its “cost goals” in the pre-pandemic context of low unemployment and rising wages.
Some agents, according to a former Intuit employee, figured out a clever way to fool the software: They would turn up their TV so there wasn’t much NTT. Intuit ultimately built an outsourced customer service workforce of more than 20,000. That’s more than double Intuit’s employee workforce. That way, the former executive said, “when the need comes, you have people with extra capacity lying around.” For the agents, that means spending hundreds of dollars on training equipment and fees and potentially never getting enough hours to make the investment worth it.
Over time, Willow, which eventually changed its name to Arise, gained traction. Virgin Atlantic, JetBlue and Staples became customers. In 2006, “In 2009, the CEO was invited to a jobs summit at the White House where she received a personal shoutout from President Barack Obama.obtained by ProPublica shows quarterly revenue of $40 million and a gross profit margin of nearly 30%. Intuit, Carnival, Disney and Comcast were among the largest revenue generators.
“They were saying as long as you’re wearing your polo shirt, you can rock out in pajamas if you wanted to,” Davenport told ProPublica.Part of Arise’s value to its corporate clients is in making itself invisible. Arise training materials say that most Arise clients — that is, the big companies — “do not want their customers to know that the handling of the call has been outsourced or that it is being answered in someone’s home.
Some code names create confusion among agents when autocorrect does its thing, turning “Funship” into “Gunship.” Some callers were creepy, Corder said. “Want to come do something?” she would hear. Agents across the industry interviewed by ProPublica said sexual harassment was a constant problem. A former Arise agent who assisted eBay callers told ProPublica she received calls from eBay sellers fuming about a site-wide glitch.
“We are fostering the growth of American small businesses run by women and minorities,” a former Arise CEO said in a 2016 press release. Arise reported that 64% of the owners were people of color and about 89% were women.“I’m a small business owner, a working woman, a mom, and I’m doing it all from my home — thanks Arise!” says “The Real” host Tamera Mowry-Housley.
Federal court records show that one of the three owners had previously been convicted of felony wire fraud while working in a similar job. Agents have little ability to take complaints to Arise itself. Arise typically tells agents who have concerns about the Independent Business they work under that it has no responsibility for adjudicating any disputes.
There were no “supervisors,” only “performance facilitators.” Agents were not “coached.” Rather, their services were “enhanced.” Arise seems particularly unable to settle on a term for the agents. Early on, the company called each a CyberAgent. Later came Arise Certified Professional. In 2012, that was changed to Client Support Professional.“Arise-speak,” as one opposing attorney called it in legal proceedings, could be a wonder to behold.
From that amount, $69.95 was taken out as a charge for Arise’s and Client Virtual Solutions’ services. On top of that, Client Virtual Solutions added another charge. The invoice deducted $150 as a “Contract Termination Fee.”Davenport’s total pay came to $58.45. Per hour, that’s about $2.52.Agents have pursued claims against Arise and won. Yet the company has been able to stay the course, even as its business model has been found in violation of federal law.
Pendergraft, the lawyer said, never submitted a job application to Arise. Never had an Arise business card. Never had an Arise email address. Never went to Arise’s offices in Miramar. Since Arise made no such showing, Hankinson doubled the damages, ordering Arise to pay Pendergraft $11,683.64. The NLRB had previously concluded that employers cannot make employees waive their rights to class action. But that did not cover independent contractors. So the issue again became: Were agents independent contractors or Arise employees?
Arise’s lone witness was Robert Padron, whose title at the time was senior vice president and general manager. He described Arise’s platform as “connective tissue” that linked Arise’s corporate clients with its network of small businesses and their agents. Muhl’s order could have had a dramatic impact, allowing Arise’s agents to join in litigation rather than being forced to go it alone, in private.
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