A few years ago i got suckered into pacing a marathon, i enjoyed it as it was helping others out in meeting their goals. It wasn't until this year working for a company called Beast that I realized there was so much wrong with it. Yes, I could get comped into the races and run X pace for the owner and I enjoyed it however i never really thought about it until recently but that lady (and every other pacing company) is filthy rich off of others doing work for them she would even openly brag she had the sweetest gig ever having other people do labor for HER and she got paid for it(She was actually quite disrespectful about it), she didn't even help pay for gas when I was driving 3+ hours to pace events.
My question is - when you break it down to the basics, these companies aren't paying people who are working for them and its a for profit industry, how is it even legal at all? Why are they not legally required to pay you X amount per hour for assisting them? This isn't a volunteering thing, they are getting rich off of people literally doing manual labor for them.
Thoughts?