That sounds like they are purposely making getting paid too much work. I'm sure they get out of paying for at least some of people's work based on what you're saying.

There’s too many unknowns here for you to get a reasonable answer.

I suggest asking a workplace lawyer based in your city.

If she’s part of a union, they probably have lawyers on hand she can talk to. If she’s not part of a union… I’m confident she can find one that would be willing to help if she joined. (Or at least give a referral to a local lawyer.)

But also, just for the record, I’ve never known it to go well when a BF/GF or any kind of romantic partystarts intruding into this kind of thing. I’ve fired more than a couple people because their intimate partner kept showing up making demands, and know a few others that dumped their partner because they decided they weren’t being “aggressive” or needed “protecting”… just some advice, but if your GF isn’t asking for this help, it might be best to sit it out. It’s certainly not a good idea to go directly to her boss/client.

I’ll speak as someone who has been in the creative space for 20 years.

Non-“making” work is a large part of any creative job. Sometimes it can be the bulk of the time spent doing the work. A professional isn’t just making; they’re often researching, synthesizing, pitching, negotiating, documenting, formatting, etc. All of that stuff is just as important.

I would check in with a community of professional writers and bring specific examples. An example type of job, the vague topic, the word count, the time spent writing, the time spent formatting in their tool, etc.

They can help to identify the gaps and problem-solve around it. Is the client underpaying? If so, how do you avoid that in the future and/ or negotiate a higher rate now? Or, is the writer spending too much time writing? If so, what are some techniques to expedite the craft?

These are good questions. I don't know. First, what state are you in? Second, does she have any coworkers? Also, does she know anyone in a similar field? If she went to school, does she know any classmates or teachers who might have advice?

Also: can this be automated? Nowadays, you can have a large language model code a lot of things. Could she instruct one to write a python or bash script to reduce since of the work?

Ultimately, I think she should keep looking for better work. But I know that can be challenging.

Seems like an automatable task im sure u can get chatgpt to write a python script woth selenium to do it automaticly.

I have no idea how this is from a legal point of view, but the fact they only give her the possibility to finish all that work within 24 hours sounds illegal

Is she deemed as a contractor? Does the company file her taxes? Being paid or not paid based on outcome is usually somwthing i see on contracts which companies force people to become to skirt labour laws and make payment based on ourcome instead of hours.

This changes the answer for you, because the reason they do this is it puts the onus on you to make everyrhibg perfect becayse they are paying for a piece of work.

There are indeed laws that punish companies that do this however but is based on location and all that (fwiw im not a lawyer)

Yep, that's wage theft