Google rater fired after speaking to Ars about work conditions

Last week we reported on the lives of Google raters, people whose job is to provide Google with data on the usefulness of its algorithms. The 10 anonymous raters we spoke with were all contractors at Leapforce, a staffing firm that provided rater services to Google. Yesterday, one of those raters, Kyle Martin Medeiros, was fired by Leapforce for an unspecified "breach of contract." Every Leapforce rater signs a contract that includes a broad NDA.

After the firing, one of Medeiros' colleagues, who goes by the pseudonym Shelly323, bragged in Leapforce chat rooms about her role in getting Medeiros fired. She said she had turned Medeiros over to Leapforce managers after he confessed to her privately on Facebook that he was speaking with Ars.

"I was the one that told LF what was happening," she wrote in Leapforce chat. "All along I leaked the info to them... He was screwing with ALL OF OUR JOBS!!! I did what I HAD TO DO TO PROTECT LF and ALL OF THE RATERS!!" Other raters congratulated her for being a "double agent" and offered to buy her cake. Leapforce did not respond to a request for comment.

Medeiros, 20, worked full time at Leapforce for a year. He said he loved the job and that it gave him "autonomy," supplementing his scholarship money from Florida Polytechnic University, where he's completing his final year studying computer engineering. He and his colleagues came to Ars because Leapforce had announced it was cutting all full-time contract positions down to part time.

Losing the job at Leapforce is a setback, but Medeiros says he's glad he stood up for what he knows is right. "At least I did something," he told Ars by phone."I wasn’t just going to sit here and let them take our hours away. That’s ridiculous." But now he's looking ahead to a new job. Medeiros was a regular in robotics competitions in high school and is now looking for an internship where he can use his software engineering skills.

After the article came out on Ars last week, chat rooms at Leapforce were ablaze with accusations, and some raters even asked whether they would get a bonus if they could figure out who the anonymous "leakers" were. Medeiros said that a number of people suspected he was one of the anonymous workers who spoke to Ars.

Leapforce, for its part, has continued with plans to convert its thousands of full-time independent contractors to part-time employees. Company staff sent an e-mail to contractors this week informing them that Leapforce CEO Daren Jackson has created a new company, RaterLabs. The new company is now e-mailing some US Leapforce raters to offer them part-time employee positions. Those who are not e-mailed have essentially been laid off.

Anonymous raters have reported to Ars that many already received offers and that, along with the hourly cut, they are also seeing pay cuts. Preferred Agents, who rank among the company's most skilled raters, are being offered $17 per hour, down from $17.40. And regular raters, who made $13.50 per hour at Leapforce, are being offered between $12.50 and $13.00 at RaterLabs, depending on their years of experience. Raters have been told not to discuss their salary offers by CEO Jackson, who wrote in a chat, "Unfortunately, any information we are publishing, confidential or not, is being used as a tool against us."

Medeiros said Leapforce did not mention his talks with Ars in the company's termination e-mail, nor did it respond to his request for an explanation. He's not the first Leapforce worker to have this experience. In October 2016, Leapforce had charges filed against it by another employee for coercive rules, threats, and promises of retaliation. The case was settled out of court.

"They could have just not hired me for RaterLabs," Medeiros said. "Instead, they went out of their way to say that I was fired."