Thanks to the methods that present the discussion of conspiracy and anti-trust, etc., it is rather simplistic to say that those laws apply to independent contractors.
In order to do a reality check, there is no violations of any laws to conduct and publish wage and salary surveys, no matter the methodology. A CF or web developer is not a legally mandated professional association vis a vis the legal fraternity, or CPA, which have licensining requirements and legal mandates requiring their employment. Because you designate a web developer, or any programmer for that matter as a professional, you are merely recognizing him/her as principally employed in that arena. not as an independent entity such as a CPA firm. The Federal Government regularly collects and publishes what they refer to as "prevailing wages" for just about every type of employment, as well as allowable profit margins by those who hire them. Compliance with the "prevailing wage" does not an anti-trust" violation make. The developer is free to charge whatever the traffic will bear, and there are multitudes of developers who have "made the grade" so to speak, that command very high prices. The same is true in the Legal field, whereas some lawyers bill at $40.00 per hour, and some bill at $500..00 per hour. The fastest way for a contractor to reduce his/her workload is to raise prices. On the other hand as skill levels increase, a higher per-hour price is justified due to productivity increases. As an example a particular worker can produce a project in 80 hours, where a more experienced one can complete the project in 40. Why is the latter not worth double the hourly rate as the former? Should the former try to charge the same rate as the latter, then the market will start to shut them out. Competition should and will force a price/productivity balance. There also, according to local legal beagles, no violations when professional associations conduct salary surveys among themselves, and individual members using the results as a guideline for their own work. An informal (or even formal) discussion of billing rates between a group of professionals should be considered as a salary survey, not price fixing. All of you have seen published salary surveys and should readily note that only a very few of those surveyed even respond. The reasons for not responding are, I am sure, many and varied, from laziness, disinterest, to fear of some ambiguous "law." For that reason the resulting statistics should always be taken with a grain of salt. In my opinion, no one should be afraid to respond as accurately as possible to a pertinent survey. In conclusion, I cannot see where "Freedom of Speech" or "Anti-Trust" can every apply to this scenario. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To Unsubscribe visit http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/cf_jobs or send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with 'unsubscribe' in the body.
