5 ms·

He's a contractor. That's the difference between him and an employee: He chooses the time, place, and manner of his work, including subcontracting it. If he's n

He's a contractor. That's the difference between him and an employee: He chooses the time, place, and manner of his work, including subcontracting it. If he's not allowed to do this, chances are you have an employee.

frisco 8y ago
Not true, limitations on subcontracting (or at least limiting it to approved subcontractors) are allowed and common. Just because he’s a contractor doesn’t mean NDAs are meaningless.
- lovich 8y ago
  Limiting work to people with security clearances is an example of ok limitations. Adding so many limits that the acceptable people to do work are the single contractor means youve jaut made a constructive way to get around hiring a person as an employee
  - zero_intp 8y ago
    your statements are unsupported. It is my observation that you are stating spirit of law to your understanding, but not what occurs in law or practice.
abiox 8y ago
> He chooses the time, place, and manner of his work, including subcontracting it. all of this is entirely within the scope of the contract. "subcontracting" is unlikely to be permissible in a variety of scenarios, especially if the material being worked on is even vaguely sensitive. when it does happen, it's typically in a larger organizational context and then there will usually be some vetting or approval process.
- lovich 8y ago
  If you are controlling how work is done then you have an employee. If subcontracting is unacceptable and you are still hiring contractors then you are just trying to run around employment law, at least in the US
  - abiox 8y ago
    do you have specific citations or is this some ideological stance? to me it makes zero sense to hire a vetted contractor who can then just toss say, classified data, over to some unknown random. it's a completely untenable proposition.
    - lovich 8y ago
      If you are requireing who can do the work and how it's done you've constrained the person into an employee-employer relationship regardless of what you decide to call. Contracts are like an interface, you are setting up an agreement on what is being provided and don't care about the implementation. When you constrain the contract so much that only a single person can fulfill the contract you are just abusing the concept of contracting. In the example above with NDAs and security clearance that can be a perfectly valid requirement, but you can't reasonably be upset if the contractor subcontracts out to someone else with clearance who has signed the same NDA
      - abiox 8y ago
        i don't agree with your definition of contracting, but either way i'm particularly interested if you can point to some legal code that forbids a contract from containing a "no subcontracting" clause. that would be quite interesting.
        lovich 8y ago
        I looked and couldn't find any limitations on subcontracting that werent specific to federal contracts so it likely that my personal view doesn't match up to the law
      - 8y ago
- matte_black 8y ago
  You can put whatever you want in your contract. Good luck holding it up in court. Personally, I wouldn’t talk too loudly about how I want contractors to behave like employees.
  - abiox 8y ago
    i'm not sure what you mean. do you have some reference to point to that says a "contractor" can't be expected to not sub-contract or work in a particular place and time? i'm honestly curious.
    - matte_black 8y ago
      Yes, the law. You don’t get to enforce when and where a contractor works. They can perhaps agree to it to keep a good relationship, but they are not obligated, and if they change their mind the only thing you can do is fire them. You also don’t get to choose how they do their job. If they agreed to do something for a given price, they can do it how they see fit, even hiring a subcontractor. Don’t like it? Don’t hire them. If you want control of both of those things, you want an employee. Now, there’s plenty of contractors that will behave like employees for you, if it gets their foot in the door, but if the IRS finds out you could be in trouble. Where do you work?
      - abiox 8y ago
        > Yes, the law thanks, but i'm hoping for something more specific. like a us code or something. i'm skeptical that you're speaking to something that actually exists, but i'm happy to see evidence of what you're talking about. > You don’t get to enforce when and where a contractor works. i'm not sure what you mean by "enforce" exactly, other than perhaps you mean to say a contract is not allowed to stipulate that, for example, a contractor work during the day to coordinate with others, or work on-site to handle materials in a secure location, or not hand privileged or sensitive data over to unknown random people. > Where do you work? at a large company that has both employees and contractors.
        8y ago
maxxxxx 8y ago
This contractor is working onsite during normal working hours. I am not even judging the situation but from what I can see he is not doing anything himself. He also got hired with the assumption that he would do the work.

frisco 8y ago

Not true, limitations on subcontracting (or at least limiting it to approved subcontractors) are allowed and common. Just because he’s a contractor doesn’t mean NDAs are meaningless.

lovich 8y ago
Limiting work to people with security clearances is an example of ok limitations. Adding so many limits that the acceptable people to do work are the single contractor means youve jaut made a constructive way to get around hiring a person as an employee
- zero_intp 8y ago
  your statements are unsupported. It is my observation that you are stating spirit of law to your understanding, but not what occurs in law or practice.

abiox 8y ago

> He chooses the time, place, and manner of his work, including subcontracting it. all of this is entirely within the scope of the contract. "subcontracting" is unlikely to be permissible in a variety of scenarios, especially if the material being worked on is even vaguely sensitive. when it does happen, it's typically in a larger organizational context and then there will usually be some vetting or approval process.

lovich 8y ago
If you are controlling how work is done then you have an employee. If subcontracting is unacceptable and you are still hiring contractors then you are just trying to run around employment law, at least in the US
- abiox 8y ago
  do you have specific citations or is this some ideological stance? to me it makes zero sense to hire a vetted contractor who can then just toss say, classified data, over to some unknown random. it's a completely untenable proposition.
  - lovich 8y ago
    If you are requireing who can do the work and how it's done you've constrained the person into an employee-employer relationship regardless of what you decide to call. Contracts are like an interface, you are setting up an agreement on what is being provided and don't care about the implementation. When you constrain the contract so much that only a single person can fulfill the contract you are just abusing the concept of contracting. In the example above with NDAs and security clearance that can be a perfectly valid requirement, but you can't reasonably be upset if the contractor subcontracts out to someone else with clearance who has signed the same NDA
    - abiox 8y ago
      i don't agree with your definition of contracting, but either way i'm particularly interested if you can point to some legal code that forbids a contract from containing a "no subcontracting" clause. that would be quite interesting.
      - lovich 8y ago
        I looked and couldn't find any limitations on subcontracting that werent specific to federal contracts so it likely that my personal view doesn't match up to the law
    - 8y ago
matte_black 8y ago
You can put whatever you want in your contract. Good luck holding it up in court. Personally, I wouldn’t talk too loudly about how I want contractors to behave like employees.
- abiox 8y ago
  i'm not sure what you mean. do you have some reference to point to that says a "contractor" can't be expected to not sub-contract or work in a particular place and time? i'm honestly curious.
  - matte_black 8y ago
    Yes, the law. You don’t get to enforce when and where a contractor works. They can perhaps agree to it to keep a good relationship, but they are not obligated, and if they change their mind the only thing you can do is fire them. You also don’t get to choose how they do their job. If they agreed to do something for a given price, they can do it how they see fit, even hiring a subcontractor. Don’t like it? Don’t hire them. If you want control of both of those things, you want an employee. Now, there’s plenty of contractors that will behave like employees for you, if it gets their foot in the door, but if the IRS finds out you could be in trouble. Where do you work?
    - abiox 8y ago
      > Yes, the law thanks, but i'm hoping for something more specific. like a us code or something. i'm skeptical that you're speaking to something that actually exists, but i'm happy to see evidence of what you're talking about. > You don’t get to enforce when and where a contractor works. i'm not sure what you mean by "enforce" exactly, other than perhaps you mean to say a contract is not allowed to stipulate that, for example, a contractor work during the day to coordinate with others, or work on-site to handle materials in a secure location, or not hand privileged or sensitive data over to unknown random people. > Where do you work? at a large company that has both employees and contractors.
      - 8y ago

maxxxxx 8y ago

This contractor is working onsite during normal working hours. I am not even judging the situation but from what I can see he is not doing anything himself. He also got hired with the assumption that he would do the work.