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I literally had to take a training that said even if a “TVC” was a core contributor to a launch and the team got t-shirts, it was not allowed to give a shirt to

I literally had to take a training that said even if a “TVC” was a core contributor to a launch and the team got t-shirts, it was not allowed to give a shirt to the TVC. You can’t give a TVC a pencil without it being counted as “compensation”. The way Googlers are fully accepting of what is clearly a tax dodge built on sacrificing the most pathetic acts of human dignity made me sick.

voiceblue 3y ago
Can someone knowledgeable explain this “tax dodge”? I was under the impression that the issue GP underlines (giving a contractor shirt/pencil) is more about avoiding misclassification and stems from a lawsuit by Microsoft contractors claiming to be common law employees based on how they were treated and then demanding additional employee-only benefits.
- notaustinpowers 3y ago
  I don't work at Google so I don't know if this is exactly what is happening, but I've worked on both ends of something similar before and this is (usually) what happens. Company A wants to hire employees to perform Task A. Task A has a lot of legal overhead or paying taxes for employees and Company A would rather not deal with that. So Company A hires Company B as a contractor, meaning Company B is primarily responsible for the legal overhead and tax liability of Task A and Company B's employees. As a contractor relationship, Company A is not able to demand Company B do certain things (such as Company A dictating what Company B pays employees, or setting PTO policies, etc). Usually, they are only able to set standards that Company B must meet to maintain that contract for Task A. It's possible Company A here (Google) may have overstepped and began instituting requirements or policies on the employees of Company B, which leads to the misclassification of employment. Google may say "They're not our employees" but if they're overstepping their bounds then they might actually be considered Google employees. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I can say it's a pigeon all day long but everyone knows it's a duck.
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    I'm not comfortable being too specific publicly but I guess I'm just wondering about the legal implications if Company A was more like: "screw it, let's have them be de facto members of the team: do the same work on the same days, and move on once we hit the 'too long to lie' mark" and steadily moved to that arrangement for a significant amount of work for a large portion of job functions.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      > screw it, let's have them be de facto members of the team: do the same work on the same days, and move on once we hit the 'too long to lie' mark" and steadily moved to that arrangement for a significant amount of work for a large portion of job functions Correct, that would be abusing contract work. But while there have been people insisting that this happens, I have yet to see someone substantiate these allegations.
      - refulgentis 3y ago
        Ah I just realized I'm replying to you in two separate subthreads: tl;dr oh yes. 100% yes. but it's unclear what your bar for confirmation is and its not a good idea to just start free associating from 'source?'. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38875022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38875022
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        That just links to a hacker news comments, which links to a hacker news comment, which links to yet another hacker news comment that just postulates that Google is abusing contract work to do the same work as full time employees but doesn't describe any incident of this occurring. In fact, the end of your linked list is the grandparent of this comment chain. Is there more compelling evidence that Google has used contractors in place of FTEs than HN users insisting it's happening with no other evidence?
      - bugglebeetle 3y ago
Terr_ 3y ago
TVC: Temporary Vendor Contractor (Just to save others a search)
GreedClarifies 3y ago
[flagged]
- sjwhevvvvvsj 3y ago
  Already did, no regrets.
  - GreedClarifies 3y ago
    Good. Addition by subtraction.
    - sjwhevvvvvsj 3y ago
      [flagged]
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
Wow, I'm so glad we had, as far as I could tell, really no TVCs at the site I worked at (CA-WAT). I recall taking training, but don't recall encountering contractors outside of the kitchen staff, etc.
sverhagen 3y ago
>You can’t give a TVC a pencil without it being counted as “compensation”. Also, don't give a sock to Dobby.
JoshTriplett 3y ago
That lack of benefits is legally mandated, thanks to some high-profile court cases. It isn't that Google or other companies simply don't want to give those kinds of perks to contractors; no manager I've worked with has ever begrudged the cost of these kinds of perks and many were just as annoyed that they couldn't give them to contractors. And it isn't that they want to classify those perks as "compensation" and somehow bill the contractor for them. It's that if you give those kinds of benefits to a contractor, they can be involuntarily retroactively reclassified as an employee. Before that legal precedent existed, many companies were a lot more free about sharing those kinds of fun perks (social events, apparel, stickers, fun things that don't have a substantial cost) with contractors. I would love to go back to a world in which companies could freely do that and thought nothing of it. And in that world, if some company arbitrarily denied those kinds of perks to contractors I'd agree that that was the company being unpleasant for no good reason. If you want to complain about companies using contractors in places where you think they should be using employees, by all means do. There are certainly cases where companies use contractors where they should be using employees, and for that matter vice versa. There are also cases where contractors are a better choice (e.g. variable/uncertain needs over time, employees of third-party companies that don't want to be employees). But if you accept that there are any valid reasons to have contractors and not just employees, the legal requirements that you can't give benefits to contractors are legal requirements imposed on the company, not arbitrary indignities invented by the company.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Back in the Olden Days, I worked at Boeing as a salaried engineer. We worked alongside a small army of contractors. The contractors didn't get any benefits, and could be let go with no notice, but had 50% higher pay than the directs. (It turns out that the value of the benefits package was about 50% of the pay.) The directs were happy to be directs, and the contractors were happy to be contractors. I don't know why people have been so eager to upset this reasonable arrangement.
  - JoshTriplett 3y ago
    To be clear, I hope that anyone who is a contractor and wants to be an employee has the opportunity to be an employee, either for that company or some other company. And, employee or contractor, I'd like to see everyone treated well, and I wish there weren't legal restrictions that prevented companies from doing that. What I don't want to see is contractors who are happy being contractors being forced to become employees, as a side effect of trying to help contractors who do want to be employees. Let's not throw out the entire concept of contracting, please.
khazhoux 3y ago
I don't see the problem. The relationship of a TVC with the company is very clear cut. The reason the compensation rules are so strict is because there's a line of people waiting to sue Google if they blur the lines. Or is your point that Google shouldn't hire any TVCs whatsoever? All work should be done by FTEs, without exception?
- lmm 3y ago
  The problem is selling out basic human decency. If Google with all their billions and PhDs can't figure out a way to hire these "TVCs" without treating them abominably then yes, they shouldn't hire them at all. (I suspect, however, that they could find a way to reconcile both those things if they actually tried - perhaps a way that would involve spending slightly more money)
  - khazhoux 3y ago
    Aside from the not giving them free t-shirts or food, what other inhumane treatment is Google committing here?
    - lmm 3y ago
      It's not about the things themselves (which are indeed trivial), it's about the singling out of one person on a team for worse treatment. That's psychologically corrosive even when the material difference is small.
      - khazhoux 3y ago
        I still don't see a problem. If someone is not comfortable with being a second-tier worker, they shouldn't sign up for the TVC gig, because the rules of the job and the distinctions with FTE are explicitly stated. Know your own boundaries, and all that. Anyone who thinks they have the chops to get through the interview process and wants to be FTE is free to give it a shot. Then they'll have all the perks (as well as have to go through annual Google perf reviews, OKRs, and all that baggage too).

voiceblue 3y ago

Can someone knowledgeable explain this “tax dodge”? I was under the impression that the issue GP underlines (giving a contractor shirt/pencil) is more about avoiding misclassification and stems from a lawsuit by Microsoft contractors claiming to be common law employees based on how they were treated and then demanding additional employee-only benefits.

notaustinpowers 3y ago
I don't work at Google so I don't know if this is exactly what is happening, but I've worked on both ends of something similar before and this is (usually) what happens. Company A wants to hire employees to perform Task A. Task A has a lot of legal overhead or paying taxes for employees and Company A would rather not deal with that. So Company A hires Company B as a contractor, meaning Company B is primarily responsible for the legal overhead and tax liability of Task A and Company B's employees. As a contractor relationship, Company A is not able to demand Company B do certain things (such as Company A dictating what Company B pays employees, or setting PTO policies, etc). Usually, they are only able to set standards that Company B must meet to maintain that contract for Task A. It's possible Company A here (Google) may have overstepped and began instituting requirements or policies on the employees of Company B, which leads to the misclassification of employment. Google may say "They're not our employees" but if they're overstepping their bounds then they might actually be considered Google employees. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I can say it's a pigeon all day long but everyone knows it's a duck.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  I'm not comfortable being too specific publicly but I guess I'm just wondering about the legal implications if Company A was more like: "screw it, let's have them be de facto members of the team: do the same work on the same days, and move on once we hit the 'too long to lie' mark" and steadily moved to that arrangement for a significant amount of work for a large portion of job functions.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    > screw it, let's have them be de facto members of the team: do the same work on the same days, and move on once we hit the 'too long to lie' mark" and steadily moved to that arrangement for a significant amount of work for a large portion of job functions Correct, that would be abusing contract work. But while there have been people insisting that this happens, I have yet to see someone substantiate these allegations.
    - refulgentis 3y ago
      Ah I just realized I'm replying to you in two separate subthreads: tl;dr oh yes. 100% yes. but it's unclear what your bar for confirmation is and its not a good idea to just start free associating from 'source?'. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38875022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38875022
      - Manuel_D 3y ago
        That just links to a hacker news comments, which links to a hacker news comment, which links to yet another hacker news comment that just postulates that Google is abusing contract work to do the same work as full time employees but doesn't describe any incident of this occurring. In fact, the end of your linked list is the grandparent of this comment chain. Is there more compelling evidence that Google has used contractors in place of FTEs than HN users insisting it's happening with no other evidence?
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago

Terr_ 3y ago

TVC: Temporary Vendor Contractor (Just to save others a search)

GreedClarifies 3y ago

[flagged]

sjwhevvvvvsj 3y ago
Already did, no regrets.
- GreedClarifies 3y ago
  Good. Addition by subtraction.
  - sjwhevvvvvsj 3y ago
    [flagged]

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

Wow, I'm so glad we had, as far as I could tell, really no TVCs at the site I worked at (CA-WAT). I recall taking training, but don't recall encountering contractors outside of the kitchen staff, etc.

sverhagen 3y ago

>You can’t give a TVC a pencil without it being counted as “compensation”. Also, don't give a sock to Dobby.

JoshTriplett 3y ago

That lack of benefits is legally mandated, thanks to some high-profile court cases. It isn't that Google or other companies simply don't want to give those kinds of perks to contractors; no manager I've worked with has ever begrudged the cost of these kinds of perks and many were just as annoyed that they couldn't give them to contractors. And it isn't that they want to classify those perks as "compensation" and somehow bill the contractor for them. It's that if you give those kinds of benefits to a contractor, they can be involuntarily retroactively reclassified as an employee. Before that legal precedent existed, many companies were a lot more free about sharing those kinds of fun perks (social events, apparel, stickers, fun things that don't have a substantial cost) with contractors. I would love to go back to a world in which companies could freely do that and thought nothing of it. And in that world, if some company arbitrarily denied those kinds of perks to contractors I'd agree that that was the company being unpleasant for no good reason. If you want to complain about companies using contractors in places where you think they should be using employees, by all means do. There are certainly cases where companies use contractors where they should be using employees, and for that matter vice versa. There are also cases where contractors are a better choice (e.g. variable/uncertain needs over time, employees of third-party companies that don't want to be employees). But if you accept that there are any valid reasons to have contractors and not just employees, the legal requirements that you can't give benefits to contractors are legal requirements imposed on the company, not arbitrary indignities invented by the company.

WalterBright 3y ago
Back in the Olden Days, I worked at Boeing as a salaried engineer. We worked alongside a small army of contractors. The contractors didn't get any benefits, and could be let go with no notice, but had 50% higher pay than the directs. (It turns out that the value of the benefits package was about 50% of the pay.) The directs were happy to be directs, and the contractors were happy to be contractors. I don't know why people have been so eager to upset this reasonable arrangement.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  To be clear, I hope that anyone who is a contractor and wants to be an employee has the opportunity to be an employee, either for that company or some other company. And, employee or contractor, I'd like to see everyone treated well, and I wish there weren't legal restrictions that prevented companies from doing that. What I don't want to see is contractors who are happy being contractors being forced to become employees, as a side effect of trying to help contractors who do want to be employees. Let's not throw out the entire concept of contracting, please.

khazhoux 3y ago

I don't see the problem. The relationship of a TVC with the company is very clear cut. The reason the compensation rules are so strict is because there's a line of people waiting to sue Google if they blur the lines. Or is your point that Google shouldn't hire any TVCs whatsoever? All work should be done by FTEs, without exception?

lmm 3y ago
The problem is selling out basic human decency. If Google with all their billions and PhDs can't figure out a way to hire these "TVCs" without treating them abominably then yes, they shouldn't hire them at all. (I suspect, however, that they could find a way to reconcile both those things if they actually tried - perhaps a way that would involve spending slightly more money)
- khazhoux 3y ago
  Aside from the not giving them free t-shirts or food, what other inhumane treatment is Google committing here?
  - lmm 3y ago
    It's not about the things themselves (which are indeed trivial), it's about the singling out of one person on a team for worse treatment. That's psychologically corrosive even when the material difference is small.
    - khazhoux 3y ago
      I still don't see a problem. If someone is not comfortable with being a second-tier worker, they shouldn't sign up for the TVC gig, because the rules of the job and the distinctions with FTE are explicitly stated. Know your own boundaries, and all that. Anyone who thinks they have the chops to get through the interview process and wants to be FTE is free to give it a shot. Then they'll have all the perks (as well as have to go through annual Google perf reviews, OKRs, and all that baggage too).