3 ms·

because IC's almost always get paid more to work more - I was an IC for 90% of my life and loved it, when I worked more than 40 hours, I got paid for more than

by ejb999 5y ago

because IC's almost always get paid more to work more - I was an IC for 90% of my life and loved it, when I worked more than 40 hours, I got paid for more than 40 hours. Now I work for mega corp, I get paid the same wether I work 40 hours or 80 hours - and have been averaging 55-65 for months now. Like my job, so not complaining, but overall I preferred the control and extra pay being an IC gave me. No everyone wants to be an IC, but for those that do, the option should exist - nobody forces you to be an employee or an IC - especially in this market. Let people decide for themselves.

ModernMech 5y ago
I think there's a general conflation of independent contractor versus salaried employee going on in the discussion here. I did it too. You can be an employee and earn wages that correlate to how much you work, and you get overtime for working past 40 hours. So the choice isn't IC versus salaried, it's IC vs. salaried employee vs. waged employee. As to delivering packages, in general the way this works is that as a UPS driver you have a delivery area. You show up at the depot in the morning and they load your truck full of packages, then you go and deliver all of them. Maybe it's different for the little Amazon vans, but for the big UPS trucks they don't go back for more. They are loaded to the brim for the day, and the driver delivers all of those packages to return only in the evening when they are done. They do this because their delivery area may be 20 or more miles from the depot; it doesn't make sense to do a 40 mile round trip each day more than once. So where is the opportunity to deliver more packages as an IC? And where is the evidence that a company like UPS is bogged down by having unionized employees, whereas FedEx is not having ICs? > nobody forces you to be an employee or an IC - especially in this market. Let people decide for themselves. Do you disagree that employers sometimes abuse their employees by mislabeling them as one or the other? The whole point of the IC vs. Employee distinction is that it's based on what you do and who controls it. It's my understanding that the line between IC and employee can very easily be crossed, leading to a situation where the company has an employee for less than what they should be paying them if they were following the law. Why can't the government enforce the law in situations like these?
- ejb999 5y ago
  >>Do you disagree that employers sometimes abuse their employees by mislabeling them as one or the other? No, but I for one am very opposed to the drive by some (not you) to do everything they can to make it next to impossible for companies to use IC's (many have stopped for fear of them being reclassified down the road) - there are plenty of people that want to operate as IC's and there are others that would prefer the 'security' of being an employee (in quotes, because imo, being an IC is often more secure than being an employee because one often has multiple customers and is constantly needing to 'sell' their services). I have no problem with people that would prefer to be an employee, not any problem with people who prefer to operate as an IC - I have done both, and would prefer both options continues to exist; people should be able to decide which model they prefer. In my field - I used to be able to IC with almost any company large or small - then big companies got spooked and they will hire you as a 'contractor', but you need to do it thru an agency who more often than not will only allow you to work as an employee on a W2 (USA) - which take huge cuts of the gross that the 'real' customer is paying - sometimes 25-50% of the actual amount billed. What was supposed to 'help' the little guy, ends up screwing them, at least some of them.

by ejb999 5y ago

ModernMech 5y ago

I think there's a general conflation of independent contractor versus salaried employee going on in the discussion here. I did it too. You can be an employee and earn wages that correlate to how much you work, and you get overtime for working past 40 hours. So the choice isn't IC versus salaried, it's IC vs. salaried employee vs. waged employee. As to delivering packages, in general the way this works is that as a UPS driver you have a delivery area. You show up at the depot in the morning and they load your truck full of packages, then you go and deliver all of them. Maybe it's different for the little Amazon vans, but for the big UPS trucks they don't go back for more. They are loaded to the brim for the day, and the driver delivers all of those packages to return only in the evening when they are done. They do this because their delivery area may be 20 or more miles from the depot; it doesn't make sense to do a 40 mile round trip each day more than once. So where is the opportunity to deliver more packages as an IC? And where is the evidence that a company like UPS is bogged down by having unionized employees, whereas FedEx is not having ICs? > nobody forces you to be an employee or an IC - especially in this market. Let people decide for themselves. Do you disagree that employers sometimes abuse their employees by mislabeling them as one or the other? The whole point of the IC vs. Employee distinction is that it's based on what you do and who controls it. It's my understanding that the line between IC and employee can very easily be crossed, leading to a situation where the company has an employee for less than what they should be paying them if they were following the law. Why can't the government enforce the law in situations like these?

ejb999 5y ago
>>Do you disagree that employers sometimes abuse their employees by mislabeling them as one or the other? No, but I for one am very opposed to the drive by some (not you) to do everything they can to make it next to impossible for companies to use IC's (many have stopped for fear of them being reclassified down the road) - there are plenty of people that want to operate as IC's and there are others that would prefer the 'security' of being an employee (in quotes, because imo, being an IC is often more secure than being an employee because one often has multiple customers and is constantly needing to 'sell' their services). I have no problem with people that would prefer to be an employee, not any problem with people who prefer to operate as an IC - I have done both, and would prefer both options continues to exist; people should be able to decide which model they prefer. In my field - I used to be able to IC with almost any company large or small - then big companies got spooked and they will hire you as a 'contractor', but you need to do it thru an agency who more often than not will only allow you to work as an employee on a W2 (USA) - which take huge cuts of the gross that the 'real' customer is paying - sometimes 25-50% of the actual amount billed. What was supposed to 'help' the little guy, ends up screwing them, at least some of them.