[zaroth]

75% of Turkers are Americans. And I didn't see it in the OP but I would guess that similarly 75% of companies issuing HITs are American.

Now I don't know the exact wording of minimum wage law, but I'm pretty sure if you hire an independent contractor through a 3rd party staffing company, let's say to clean houses. And then you set a fixed price on the service, say you will pay $20 for each house cleaned, knowing it takes 4 hours on average to clean a house. And then you let anyone who wants it take the job. This would be illegal.

So, I honestly don't know how mTurk is allowed to operate the way they do. American companies should not be able to hire American workers to perform labor at below minimum wage, just because they use an API to do it.

I'm willing to bet if someone was willing to spell it all out in front of the right AG or the right class action legal team that there would be significant settlements to be had.

[mtw]

From what I understand, most of the american turkers are stay-at-home moms. They have a family to cater to and various obligations that prevent them to pursue a full-time job. Mechanical Turk gives them the possibility to work anytime, at their own rhytm. 10mn there, 2 hours, early am, middle of the night. I'm not sure if there are jobs that can offer this flexibility.

[zaroth]

I don't believe that working in fits and spurts is a written exception to the minimum wage law.

To be covered by the Federal minimum wage, one must be a "covered nonexempt" employee. There are two ways in which an employee can be covered by the law: "enterprise coverage" and "individual coverage." [1]

  Enterprise Coverage

  Employees who work for certain businesses or organizations (or "enterprises") are
  covered by the FLSA. These enterprises, which must have at least two employees, are:

    (1) those that have an annual dollar volume of sales or business done of at least
        $500,000
    (2) hospitals, businesses providing medical or nursing care for residents, schools and
        preschools, and government agencies

  Individual Coverage

  Even when there is no enterprise coverage, employees are protected by the FLSA if their
  work regularly involves them in commerce between States ("interstate commerce"). The FLSA
  covers individual workers who are "engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for
  commerce."

  Examples of employees who are involved in interstate commerce include those who: produce
  goods (such as a worker assembling components in a factory or a secretary typing letters
  in an office) that will be sent out of state, regularly make telephone calls to persons
  located in other States, handle records of interstate transactions, travel to other States
  on their jobs, and do janitorial work in buildings where goods are produced for shipment
  outside the State.

What I think that means is either Turkers are covered by FLSA if the HIT comes from a business which has more than $500k of annual sales volume.

Or Turkers are covered under FLSA because their work involves commerce between states. Because their work itself is literally commerce between states on its face -- the writen work product is sent over the Internet -- I don't see how you weasel out of that one.

I don't see how Turkers could be exempt from FLSA, but IANAL.

[1] - https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs14.htm

[wslh]

Just check how much you can do in Mechanical Turk and you would find that is basically zero. It would be good to calculate what is the price of this work in other markets to know if this is fair trade, fair labor.

[beachstartup]

lots of companies do it. look at farm workers or car washes or -- allegedly -- amazon's very own warehouses. not to mention the overseas factories that build everything they sell.

there's a whole section of society that minimum wage laws simply don't apply to and everyone looks the other way while enjoying the benefits.

someone like bezos basically just enjoys complete non-accountability and even high praise and wealth for putting an api in front of literally everything he can think of, including illegal labor practices.