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Unlike Uber, Google has proactively taken steps to ensure contractors are not able to be considered employees. If Google wants to use contractors, for one reaso
by the_jeremy 6y ago
Unlike Uber, Google has proactively taken steps to ensure contractors are not able to be considered employees. If Google wants to use contractors, for one reason or another, lawyers have told them they need to take these sort of steps.
This whole article is basically complaining that being a contractor sucks because the law forces Google to follow these sorts of practices, but then blames Google for following these sorts of practices.
- bushbaba 6y agoThat’s cause they were sued and lost. Google then added trainings to avoid future issues. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/11/google-tvc-full-time-employees-training-document https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/11/google-tv...
- sixothree 6y agoThe law forces google to choose contractors instead of hiring employees?
- username90 6y agoContractors are easy, you just throw money at a contracting firm and they solve your problem. Doing it inhouse means they have to hire managers and all other support personnel needed to hire and keep employees, that is a lot more complicated. The law makes it more complicated to throw money at contracting firms to make them solve your problems, hence why they get fired every 2 years etc.
- pydry 6y agoExcept they actually have managers and if they've been there two years it's easy as pie to just hire them. This is Google cheaping out on medical insurance and PTO.
- username90 6y agoIf Google wanted to be cheap they could just hire them and pay them less, but they don't.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoIn order to keep benefits tax free, companies have to make them lucrative enough for lower paid employees such that they pass non discrimination testing. It’s not a trivial expense even if the wage is lower, the total compensation cost can be higher.
- yanderekko 6y agoYep. It's an awkward situation. A lot of the data engineers I work with are CWs, and under the circumstances of normal interaction they're pretty much indistinguishable from FTEs. But there are all sorts of compliance reasons for why you aren't supposed to treat them as real "team members" with all the attendant perks and privileges. Many ICs will not even realize that their colleagues are CWs since it's not the default presumption. The "solution" of just converting them all to FTEs and effectively giving them massive boosts in total compensation is impractical. So this awkward, hushed reality is likely to continue as a least-bad solution.
- TigeriusKirk 6y ago>The "solution" of just converting them all to FTEs and effectively giving them massive boosts in total compensation is impractical. Why is it impractical?
- yanderekko 6y agoBecause companies reasonably try to avoid throwing away money? I mean, I'm not sure exactly why companies higher CWs as opposed to just lower-paid FTEs. Could be a remedial stopgap to deal with issues in the "normal" hiring pipeline, I'd guess? But the answer to why they don't just throw extra money at people who are already willing to work for you is obvious.
- cool_dude85 6y agoWell, if Google can afford to do it (they can) then it's perfectly practical. They just don't want to, and you're right that the reason is obvious.
- matz1 6y agoI can easily afford to pay my mechanic twice the money. Of course just like google, I don't want to.
- sidlls 6y agoThey’re attempting to make use of technicalities in the rules which are likely to be viewed with skepticism if a lawsuit were to ever arise. The law and regulations aren’t applied algorithmically. The lawsuit might not be won, but it’d be interesting to see.