5 ms·

If you are an IT company and all your work is done through contract developers, perhaps you _are_ going against the spirit of the law. Labor law is meant to pr

by rtpg 8y ago

If you are an IT company and all your work is done through contract developers, perhaps you _are_ going against the spirit of the law. Labor law is meant to protect those in the employer <-> employee relationship, and most contractual work explicitly weaken this relationship a lot. So contractual work really shouldn't be the norm in a business. If you can't provide your main business without this set of people, then those people are probably your employees?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> If you can't provide your main business without this set of people, then those people are probably your employees? This doesn't make any sense. Farmers are not employees of grocery stores. Factory foremen are not employees of drop shippers. Amazon warehouse staff are also not employees of drop shippers. Comcast cable layers are not employees of YouTube. You think farmers aren't employees of grocery stores because the stores could buy the same food from different farmers? That's just as true of the IT company and its contract developers.
- semi-extrinsic 8y ago
  But that is wildly different. A farmer provides goods that hold value for almost anyone. Once they have produced a bushel of apples, that bushel can be bought by anyone. On the contrary, once a software developer has produced some code, it only holds value for the specific company that order this specific piece of code.
  - dgacmu 8y ago
    Not always. Consider two scenarios: (1) adding a feature to an existing product that the company sells. (example: writing a better grammar checker for MS word). (2) contracting with the developer of a small open source embedded database to add a specific SQL feature that you wanted to use in your web backend.
- rtpg 8y ago
  This is a pretty big simplification. Grocers buy produce from the farmers, not their time. This matches some conrractors, of course. But it also extremely doesn't match many contractor developers. Are you required to be online 4-6 hours a day? Do some of the companies employees not even know if you are actually a contractor? Are you the one picking up the metaphorical phone when the company's client is calling with a support issue? You might actually be an employee If you show up with a deliverable , can go on vacation without clearing it with anyone, and are actually your own boss... Well that's different of course
  - lstroud 8y ago
    There’s also a pretty big difference between a Corp to Corp relationship and a 1099.
  - CamperBob2 8y ago
    If you show up with a deliverable , can go on vacation without clearing it with anyone, and are actually your own boss... Well that's different of course It was different, but my point is that the 'B' clause ("Service is outside the business' normal variety", whatever that means) can be interpreted to remove this distinction. A lot of people are cheering for this bullshit without thinking it all the way through.
IncRnd 8y ago
> If you can't provide your main business without this set of people, then those people are probably your employees? That's not the case. A home builder may exclusively hire various sub-contracting companies to assemble a home, put in electricity, add finishings, etc. Those sub-contractors contract for many other home builders or landlords and are not employees of the home builders. That is the case, even though a home builder would go out of business without the sub-contractors. Here is a different example. If a programmer works for one tech firm which calls the programmer a contractor, then if the programmer also create a personal website or side project for income, they may have established themselves as contractors.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  > even though a home builder would go out of business without the sub-contractors. // They wouldn't, because they could drop in a replacement contractor. In your example the house builder relies on contractors but not the specific set of people doing the contracting (as in the parent), so any contractor can be replaced readily from the pool of contractors. In theory a contractor can send someone else in to do the work, as long as the work in the contract is completed. If you demand a specific person to do work then they're likely an employee.
  - IncRnd 8y ago
    > In your example the house builder relies on contractors but not the specific set of people doing the contracting (as in the parent), so any contractor can be replaced readily from the pool of contractors. All you've done is restate my comment. > In theory a contractor can send someone else in to do the work, as long as the work in the contract is completed. If you demand a specific person to do work then they're likely an employee. That theory is wrong. If Business A depends upon the specific person B, and B does other work outside of A, then B is not necessarily an employee of A. There are many people with specialized knowledge that others do not have. The acquisition of that knowledge doesn't make them employees. It makes them valuable.
- octorian 8y ago
  I think there's a distinction here, which is often lost due to similarity of the language. One class is "contract employee". These people are basically treated as second-class employees (with just enough arbitrary restrictions to enforce that) of the company they effectively work for. The other class is "employee of a contractor". These people are real employees of a company that hires them and provides them benefits. The company they work for then sub-contracts to various other companies and uses those people to fulfill the work under that contract. Since both cases use the term "contractor", and the former is far more common in the minds of everyone here, its easy to get the two distinctions confused. Maybe we need better terminology?
walshemj 8y ago
Well if in the UK I can get 3x my FTE rate as contractor its definitely in my interest. Also some type of lawyers are self employed if it's ok for a Barrister why not me. The problem is when you get mcjob companies who abuse minimum wage staff - its well paid individual contractors that get hit.

by rtpg 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

thaumasiotes 8y ago

> If you can't provide your main business without this set of people, then those people are probably your employees? This doesn't make any sense. Farmers are not employees of grocery stores. Factory foremen are not employees of drop shippers. Amazon warehouse staff are also not employees of drop shippers. Comcast cable layers are not employees of YouTube. You think farmers aren't employees of grocery stores because the stores could buy the same food from different farmers? That's just as true of the IT company and its contract developers.

semi-extrinsic 8y ago
But that is wildly different. A farmer provides goods that hold value for almost anyone. Once they have produced a bushel of apples, that bushel can be bought by anyone. On the contrary, once a software developer has produced some code, it only holds value for the specific company that order this specific piece of code.
- dgacmu 8y ago
  Not always. Consider two scenarios: (1) adding a feature to an existing product that the company sells. (example: writing a better grammar checker for MS word). (2) contracting with the developer of a small open source embedded database to add a specific SQL feature that you wanted to use in your web backend.
rtpg 8y ago
This is a pretty big simplification. Grocers buy produce from the farmers, not their time. This matches some conrractors, of course. But it also extremely doesn't match many contractor developers. Are you required to be online 4-6 hours a day? Do some of the companies employees not even know if you are actually a contractor? Are you the one picking up the metaphorical phone when the company's client is calling with a support issue? You might actually be an employee If you show up with a deliverable , can go on vacation without clearing it with anyone, and are actually your own boss... Well that's different of course
- lstroud 8y ago
  There’s also a pretty big difference between a Corp to Corp relationship and a 1099.
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  If you show up with a deliverable , can go on vacation without clearing it with anyone, and are actually your own boss... Well that's different of course It was different, but my point is that the 'B' clause ("Service is outside the business' normal variety", whatever that means) can be interpreted to remove this distinction. A lot of people are cheering for this bullshit without thinking it all the way through.

IncRnd 8y ago

> If you can't provide your main business without this set of people, then those people are probably your employees? That's not the case. A home builder may exclusively hire various sub-contracting companies to assemble a home, put in electricity, add finishings, etc. Those sub-contractors contract for many other home builders or landlords and are not employees of the home builders. That is the case, even though a home builder would go out of business without the sub-contractors. Here is a different example. If a programmer works for one tech firm which calls the programmer a contractor, then if the programmer also create a personal website or side project for income, they may have established themselves as contractors.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
> even though a home builder would go out of business without the sub-contractors. // They wouldn't, because they could drop in a replacement contractor. In your example the house builder relies on contractors but not the specific set of people doing the contracting (as in the parent), so any contractor can be replaced readily from the pool of contractors. In theory a contractor can send someone else in to do the work, as long as the work in the contract is completed. If you demand a specific person to do work then they're likely an employee.
- IncRnd 8y ago
  > In your example the house builder relies on contractors but not the specific set of people doing the contracting (as in the parent), so any contractor can be replaced readily from the pool of contractors. All you've done is restate my comment. > In theory a contractor can send someone else in to do the work, as long as the work in the contract is completed. If you demand a specific person to do work then they're likely an employee. That theory is wrong. If Business A depends upon the specific person B, and B does other work outside of A, then B is not necessarily an employee of A. There are many people with specialized knowledge that others do not have. The acquisition of that knowledge doesn't make them employees. It makes them valuable.
octorian 8y ago
I think there's a distinction here, which is often lost due to similarity of the language. One class is "contract employee". These people are basically treated as second-class employees (with just enough arbitrary restrictions to enforce that) of the company they effectively work for. The other class is "employee of a contractor". These people are real employees of a company that hires them and provides them benefits. The company they work for then sub-contracts to various other companies and uses those people to fulfill the work under that contract. Since both cases use the term "contractor", and the former is far more common in the minds of everyone here, its easy to get the two distinctions confused. Maybe we need better terminology?

walshemj 8y ago

Well if in the UK I can get 3x my FTE rate as contractor its definitely in my interest. Also some type of lawyers are self employed if it's ok for a Barrister why not me. The problem is when you get mcjob companies who abuse minimum wage staff - its well paid individual contractors that get hit.