I take up assignments on odesk and I like this very much. In my experience the screenshots are only reviewed when the work expectations are not met - I don't think anybody looked at those in most of the work I have done so far (apart from the first couple of days).
Just the fact that they exits promotes transparency and fosters more trust.
Occasionally when a task I estimated to take 30 minutes takes 3 hours I don't have to offer an explanation.
The tool also automatically tracks time that I spend working on a project, submits time sheet / invoice at end of the week ...
Thanks.
I appreciate the difference and understand the need for taking other things into consideration for allowing immigration.
But most of the arguments made in this thread and other similar debates - the main point is about the economics associated with it. By not allowing companies to pay lower wages to foreign workers the wages of the local market is being protected.
In the short term bringing down the wages would be unfair to the employees in the local market - as they have probably paid a higher price to acquire education, healthcare, housing etc. But in the longer term those inefficiencies would also get addressed.
The same argument applies to opening up the markets for goods and services. In the short term the local producers of goods are subjected to competition which will result in many of them going out of business which indirectly effects the people employed by them.
After reading the section below from the WTO site I can't understand how such a practice of discriminating against foreign workers is compatible with free trade espoused and taken advantage of by developed countries. Protectionism in terms of differential pricing of goods in many cases to protect local industries and jobs is considered against free trade. This to me seems like a very opportunistic interpretation of free trade.
http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact2_e.h...
2. National treatment: Treating foreigners and locals equally Imported and locally-produced goods should be treated equally — at least after the foreign goods have entered the market. The same should apply to foreign and domestic services, and to foreign and local trademarks, copyrights and patents. This principle of “national treatment” (giving others the same treatment as one’s own nationals) is also found in all the three main WTO agreements (Article 3 of GATT, Article 17 of GATS and Article 3 of TRIPS), although once again the principle is handled slightly differently in each of these.
National treatment only applies once a product, service or item of intellectual property has entered the market. Therefore, charging customs duty on an import is not a violation of national treatment even if locally-produced products are not charged an equivalent tax.
P.S : I am from India, I have no intention now (or ever before) of emigrating to find better opportunities. So this comment is not borne out of any bitterness. It is out of genuine curiosity to know why this point of view is rarely mentioned in any such debate.