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HP Contract Workers Sue For Recognition
manganese4 writes "The Idaho Statesman is carrying the story of 33 local Boise HP contract workers suing HP. They claim that they were expected to perform at the same level of expectations as HP workers and thus should be given the rights and privileges of HP workers. HP claims the suit is without merit." From the article: "The suit seeks to represent 3,000 workers in Boise and elsewhere in the company and could involve as much as $300 million, according to the complaint."
I never understood how these things work: Do some lawyers wake up in the morning and decide, "Hey! I need a new pool. Hmmmm, I think I sue HP today. Now, let's find a reason.".
That's really how it looks, and it would make me feel slimy to take part in something like that.
not that HP doesn't deserve, but that's not my point.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Jennifer Miller of Nampa is one of the plaintiffs. Miller said she was employed by HP in Boise from 1989 to 1995, when she took a severance package and left the company. She returned later in 1995 as a contract worker and worked at HP until March 9. Part of the time she was a contract employee through Veritest and Manpower Professional. Her jobs included testing software for HP printers.
Umm, I have never heard of anything like this before. Temp agencies hire employees, charge the companies their employees work at, and then pay (and give benefits if applicable) to their employees from that.
Since when are you owed money/benefits from a company you really don't directly work for?
The protest will die down as soon as the contractors are offered HP's "4 30-lbs sacks of potatoes" bonus offered to the regular Idaho employees as a holiday bonus.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I'm pulling for these guys. Companies tend to have the nasty habit of using what they call contractors to get out of paying taxes and benifits that they really should be. If you go to the IRS website and look up the rules which are used to determine whether someone is an employee or contractor it's clear that rules are being broken.
I've had my share of contract and full-time work, and I guess I'm kinda weird, because I actually read my contract. If it doesn't say I get benefits, I don't expect benefits, If it says I will, I expect benefits. Am I going to be getting a 1099 or a W2 at the end of the year? Because one is typical of a contract employee and the other is a regular employee. Regular employees typically get benefits, and the company pays the taxes. Contract employees pay their own taxes and benefits.
I am sorry but I have done contract work for over 10 years and this pisses me off. They may work at HP but they work for either their contract agency or for themselves. I didn't sue Pixar when I worked there because they decided not to put contractors in the credits. I don't expect the company I am working at to provide me with health benefits and stock options, I should get those through the agency who pays me.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Later Apple did hire me as an employee. At that point since I believed that I was an employee, pursuant to the previously signed statement I wrote a notice and tried to deliver it to Apple's legal department. They seemed completely flummoxed as to why I was notifying them that I was an employee.
My wife and I each spent a stint with Compaq (became HP while she still worked there) and they play this game all the time. They work everyone the same, but 'badge' employees actually get vacation, 401k, etc.
It wasn't right then, and if it's still going on, good for them for suing. I knew people that had worked there for YEARS and never got 'badged'. No vacation time (although you could occassionally get time off without pay) and rarely, if ever would you get any kind of incentive or pay increase. You'd also usually get let go without warning, and the contractors would play a game of saying that you're still employed with the contracting agency, thus not entitled to unemployment benefits (which, at least under Colorado law is not true. I managed to get benefits).
Anyway, it's about time.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
The IRS rules on this are quite specific and, IIRC, Microsoft lost a huge case on this in the early 90's for hiring contractors that were, in essence, 2nd class employees.
From the article:
Huntley's lawsuit cites all 20 criteria and claims that in every case HP treats contract workers as employees.
Among them:
Does the worker have assistants whom the company supervises and pays?
Does the company furnish tools, materials and other equipment sufficient to show control?
Is the worker required to devote substantially full time to the company?
Kaupins advises companies to check with the IRS if they have any questions about contract workers vs. employees, because companies can be held liable for back taxes if worker status changes from contractor to employee.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Is this any surprise? If the government makes you pay a higher tax for full-time employees, then this discourages hiring full-time employees. The same with imposition of benefits for such employees: it is the government providing a disincentive for hiring the kind of employees that would get these benefits.
Is it any surprise that the companies are responding to economic pressure from the government NOT to hire regular full-time workers?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
If HP loses this suit will it delay future HP purchases of Gulf Stream 5's?
Whats funny to me is that when Microsoft got sued for much the same reasons the response here was very much against the Redmond Giant. Now thats its another company the attitudes seem to have shifted against the contract workers. This is also a reason I will never again do temp work. I'd rather fish uneaten burgers out of the Burger King dumpster.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Back when I did contract work, I always had to go through a large agency because:
I wasn't on the preferred vendor list
I needed to have more than five employees working at my company
I needed to be incorporated - not much of a problem. My accountant did it for me for $75.
When I asked why the hoops, I was told about IRS rules. When I pinned them on it they confessed that it was because they were afraid of what happened in the article happening to them. As a result, I earned 40% less because of people like the above.
Hello, when you work for a contract company, you are treated differently: usually paid more then the regular employees.
Sorry about the rant.
Hey, this lawsuit is just like the one I'm bringing against /.! I was a "common-law" moderator, and they took my mod rights away! I was expected to perform on the same level as the moderators, but without receiving the same benefits!
:p
Ooh, you guys are gonna pay me $$$ restitution!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
While colloquially classified as "contractors," these individuals were not contract employees. They were full-time employees (W-2) of the contracting company, who in turn had a contract with the customer to provide a staffing service. The contract was with their employer -- not the employee directly.
The contractor vs. employee argument only comes into play when you're talking about true-blue contractors who work for a flat rate under a 1099, not W2 employees.
This was the situation in the famous Microsoft contractor vs. employee case. Contrary to common belief, the contractors were not the instigators in that case. It was the IRS who audited Microsoft and determined that they had incorrectly classified people as independant contractors as opposed to employees, and was therefore liable for back employment taxes (which, by the way, are paid if you're a W2 employee of a contracting company). The contractors then picked it up from there and demanded that, since the IRS classified them as employees, they were due the benefits give to full-time employees.
In my humble, and non-lawyerish opinion, this case is entirely without merit. They were employees of the contracting company, and were given a benefit package that they agreed upon by becoming employees.
No shit...hell, after those contractors sued MS years back...its been bad enough trying to get companies to hire you as a 1099 contractor...
This is going to do nothing but make it even harder....I find it is damned near impossible to get anyone to do a straight 1009 to an individual. You can get around it by incorporating yourself, and doing it corp to corp...
Anyway, this sucks...if they wanted to be direct employees...do that. But, don't go in as a contractor, show your ass, sue...and f*ck it up for the rest of us that enjoy the $$'s, and freedom of contracting...
asshats....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Around here (BC, Canada) an employee is one who
For labour relations and tax reasons some employers try to put employees on the books as consultants or contractors, but their financial auditors (it's not GAAP), revenue canada auditors (it may be tax evasion), and the labour relations board smack them down pretty fast.
(std disclaimer: IANAL, IANAA, if you need a lawyer or accountant, get a real one)
There are legitimate reasons to use contractors. Like when you temporarily need a few extra people at crunch time. Or there's a specialized task that it makes sense to outsource.
But a lot of contractors are doing jobs that are really part of the permanent organizational structure, often working side by side with permanent employees who do the same work. Technically, they're temporary people who work for themselves or for a "job shop". But their contracts are often extended for years, and the person who supervises them and decides they ongoing future works for the company, not the job shop.
I've never quite understood why companies "hire" so many non-employees. My best guess is that inept managers can't figure out how to justify the head count they need to get the job done, but somehow manage to get "temporary" funding for contractors.
Being that kind of long-term contractor can be maddening. There may be campus facilities, like a gym, that you're not allowed to use. There will certainly be bennies -- matched 401Ks, stock options, tuition reimbursements -- that you won't be eligible for. And then there are the intangibles...
I once worked for a year as a contractor helping clean up a doc set. (The guy who replaced me in this "temporary" job is still there -- 6 years later!) My work helped earn my writing team an award for "improved documentation." Some of the improvements cited were done at my initiative. But because I was a contractor, I wasn't even invited to the ceremony.
A lawyer who helps defend people against this kind of abuse is not "slimy". He's simply helping people defend their rights.
HP & Agilent terminated most of their IT departments and rehired them through an agency.
So HP deserves everything they get from this lawsuit. The previous posts about these guys
being asses and wrecking it for all other contractors, well, they don't know the real story. HP is as guilty as
Microsoft in this case.
Twenty years ago, I would have wanted recognition for working for HP. Now, I think the FULL TIME employees should sue HP for the right to say hey really work for McDonald's.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
HP announced layoffs today in its Boise Idaho facility, affecting approximately 3000 contract workers. Spokeswoman Debra Cartwright was quoted as saying, "Why should we hire American's and their god-damned lawsuits?! We'll outsource this crap and save a ton of money on the tax breaks W gives us!"
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
First, let me say that I have been an HP supporter for many years, but my support has waned through the Carly years.
I subscribe to the point of view that HP likely has violated the law and is simply using these contractors as a way to avoid having regular employees on the rolls. It may or may not be less expensive to have contractors rather than employees doing the work. It most certainly is more flexible since contractors can be let go for no reason at all and with little recourse or potential fallout. It does keep headcount low which is a favorite with financial types.
I suspect many of these contractors took the contract many months or years ago with little expectation that it would continue this long. They've likley received no pay raises in that time and are feeling a bit mistreated. I'm an independent contractor and I understand their feelings. Where else in Boise does an IT contractor find work?
My main concern here is why isn't the DOJ or DOL prosecuting this suit? Seems to me questions of employee vs. contractor are settled via federal law and the feds ought to be pursuing alleged abuses, not the individual contractors.
I read a lot of comments from the field about how it's all about their contract and what's in it. And that's not really the issue here. Simply stating in a contract that a person is not an employee but a contractor doesn't make it so, even if both parties agree. What does matter however is the set of expectations the contracting party puts on the contracted one. Myself I'm a swimming coach and the club I worked for treated me very much like an employee while paying me like a contractor, I chose not to pursue legal action because it's a very small community we coaches travel in, and suing a non-profit childrens organization doesn't sit well with anyone. Instead I just jumped ship and got a better job elsewhere. Anyway, my research led me here: Employee vs. Independant Contractor Enjoy
On the one hand, the Big Business In Bed With Government mentality that runs this country wants to avoid any type of national health care. They insist that is a job for the private sector. They shut down Medicaid, medicare, any chance at national health plans. "See," they say, "your employer should provide that. It is not a proper job for government."
... have you ever shopped for an individual health plan? Good god almighty that is expensive! You know how much less it costs when a company buys it for their employees? I swear it stinks. It's as if individuals are subsidizing businesses. It really stinks.
So I tell you what
So people try to organize labor unions, like at Wal-Mart, or they try to get full time jobs, like at H-P, in order to get that health care. And guess what? Wal-Mart closes stores rather than deal with unions. H-P hires contractors to do the same work so they can avoid having to pay for health care.
You know, life sucks, but it doesn't have to suck that bad. That's why I applaud lawsuits like this, and consider those lawyers top grade on the morals scale, or at least they have better morals than the politicians and their corporate rulers who don't miss a chance to stick it to people who work for a living.
Infuriate left and right
With shrinking wages and long long hours isn't it time to start getting overtime? If you not a manager managing people your a worker. Has long as your bosses can work you like a dog for 60 hours weeks then they won't hire anyone else to take the load. The threat of Overtime for tech workers will help put more of your colleagues to work.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
But why???? Look, even full time employees have no such thing as job security anymore. So, why NOT contract? You make sure and bill out enough to cover your own insurance...
You really get no benefits such as job security, respect, loyalty in a direct position anymore. It just isn't there. If you're not getting the benefits of that...they why would you not want to contract...make the bigger bucks...get tax breaks...and make enough to pay your own insurance.
Frankly, I hate it that the IRS is trying to make it so hard to NOT be able to do this...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That's retardulous. That's not the case at all. You are a contract worker (aka independent contractor) when you sign a contract saying so. It has nothing to do with responsibilities or deadlines.
And the determination of what is an employee is set by the federal government, including IRS guidelines, labor guidelines, tax code, and congressional laws. State laws may provide certain benefit to non-employees, but that doesn't make them an employee.
When you sign a contract, you are agreeing that you will do X amount of work (hours, units, a project) for Y amount of money (whether flat or per hour). Often, other responsibilities such as work hours are specified in the contract, or there's a clause stating that the employer will decide those terms.
As a contract worker, you are not entitled to any benefits whatsoever. Under some cicumstances, the "employer" doesn't pay payroll taxes, and you are responsible for all taxes, because you are effectively self-employed. My father got swindled into this as a dealer rep for an auto auction in the 80s. The owner of that auction eventually went to prison for tax evasion and ghost employment (big surprise).
And yes, if you plan on working as a contract worker, get an attorney to look over the contract. It'll cost you some (it cost my former roommate $150), but is well worth it. Not just any attorney, though, an employment attorney.
IT people need to read about how law affects them. I've always found that Nolo has great books for us non-lawyers. Those in IT would be most interested in this book, which provides guidance on these issues for both employers and employees.
I've had two positions (two different employers) where I worked on-site with government agencies. I worked side by side with regular government employees and other sub-contractors in both cases. Does that entitle me to full government benefits? I'd love to have some of the health and training benefits offered by government agencies.
In my opinion, contract employees should only receive the benefits offered to them by their employer, not the company or agency they may actually work at. If you don't like the benefits you have, then switch jobs. Companies/agencies hire contract workers for various reasons:
handle extra work
partnering with minority businesses
internal hiring practices may be too strict - hire/fire easier with contractor
cheaper labor rates due to competition between contractors - let's face it, some companies/agencies are "bloated" (i.e. unions, legacy business units from mergers, or whatever other reasons people's benefits/pay increase beyond similar rates by other companies)
Our company will let go any contractor that is not hired within 6 months and that is a rule of HR though sometimes people slip through the cracks I've seen it enforced.
To those that disagree many contract companies will pay you no benefits and they are not required to disclose any of the details of what they get for your work before you are paid. For all you know is that the company could be charging 45 a hour for your work but paying you 20 a hour claiming the extra 25 a hours is for health, vacation and all that but not providing it to you.
And where I have worked contractors are treated like second class employees, they're not invited to employee functions and other team building events which I disagree with as it hurts the group as a whole making your contractors feel like insiders. Companies that promote these actions should be compelled to invite their contractors to functions. You may end up with more satisfied workers as a whole.
How many posters have said "They signed a contract! They're contractors! Screw 'em!"? Those posters are idiots. With the notable exception of just a couple of posters, the ignorance here amazes me.
For those of you who want some idea what's real and what's hot air being blown by a bunch of no-nothing nerds who think their world-view should inform every business relationship in the country, listen up. IT DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU'VE SIGNED A CONTRACT. IT DOES NOT MATTER (much) WHAT THE CONTRACT SAYS.
You can sign a contract to work for a big corp wherein you swear a thousand times that you're not an employee and you'll never seek employee benefits and you're not entitled to them and you'll never sue. You and your new bosses can sing from the mountaintops for a month that you are not an employee. And none of that matters.
Employees are defined by law, not by some silly piece of paper drawn up by the legal department at MegaCorp. If you meet certain criteria, you are an employee. It doesn't matter if you and your bosses agree differently. It doesn't matter what the contract says. If you meet the criteria, you ARE an employee. Period. And if you ARE an employee and your employer is treating you different from other employees (by, for example, referring to you as a contractor and not giving you benefits), then you've got a reason to sue.
Those criteria are found on this form. Read it and learn something and quit spouting off about stuff when (most of) you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
PS - What really amazes me is how many of you guys are posting "I'm a contractor and..." stories. Reading your posts makes it crystal clear that you often haven't a clue what the definition of "independent contractor" is. And you're making your living as one?!? The mind boggles. It really does.
Apply for a job.
A lot of people are afraid to be contractors, because of a mythical notion called "job security." They think that if the economy suddenly collapses their company will protect them while contractors starve. These people don't get out enough.
If you do a little arithmetic you will find that the amount you get paid over an FTE employee far exceeds the dollar value of the gym, paid vacation, insurance etc. If that's not the case you are with the wrong agency. Forget the award ceremony and take yourself out to dinner every time you deposit a paycheck. By being a contractor you are beating the system. Don't let the system convince you otherwise.
The Internal Revenue Services uses a list of 20 criteria to help determine a worker's status, but Kaupins said those criteria come down to three main points: Does the employer have control over where you work, what time you work and what you work with?
These employees had requirements that should not have been imposed on contractors. They had all the restrictions of salaried employees, but none of the associated benefits. And that's wrong, especially because HP pays less in taxes for each contract employee.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
If HP is found guilty then they are not the only ones who will go down for this. BellSouth is very guilty of this. At one point they fired most of their full time IT and development staff and hired Accenture to do most of their IT and development work. Here's the catch, Accenture went and hired all of the same people who were "fired". The same people who had been working the same job for five to fifteen years went right back to work at the same place sitting at the same desk. The only difference is they started getting their paychecks from a different company. Oh, and the other difference is, Accenture did not pay any overtime. Of course some people used the transition to their advantage and made use of their new employer but the whole thing seemed like a somewhat shady tax evasion thing. This happened during the tech bubble burst so people were happy just to have a job. It did seem insane to some people because now BellSouth was paying two to five times as much per resource. I figured it was a big shuffling of the corporate books. I did wonder how legal it was though. This case with HP could prove to be interesting......
No, nobody's being abused.
I was a contractor for ten years, and I've been a full-time employee for the last 12. As a contractor, I understood that I got an hour's pay for an hour's work. Period. I arranged my own vacation, insurance, and everything else that employees get as benefits. It was my job to ensure that my billing rate was high enough that I earned a good living after paying all those expenses, and I did. I earned a VERY good living, usually a lot better than my employee counterparts.
I quit contracting because I got tired of doing the lowest-level scut work that nobody else wanted, and now I earn a good living as an employee, but I have no illusions about loyalty or job security.
If I was abused by anybody, it was by the contract houses, who skimmed (or tried to, at least) an excessive amount of my raw billing rate as pure profit for them. Needless to say, when I found a contract house that treated me like I might actually know how the business works, I stuck with them.
Not legal?
Contractors get paid more than FTEs. That's a fact, unless they the contractor is inept or stupid. When I contracted, I got paid more. The reason for this is that a) you're expected to bring a high level of expertise to the job, often MORE than employees and b) you're expected to make enough money to cover your own benefits.
You still report to people, that's called "a job" -- you will ALWAYS report to someone. FTEs report to their manager, Contractors report to their customer -- which may be middle management or a company president.
If you don't like it, then find work as an employee, and not a contractor.
Legal technicalities aside, I kind of side with HP on this. They entered into a good-faith agreement with the contractors, and both sides signed the contract. I think they should be told to obey the law from now on, but not be penalized for an honest mistake.
There are a lot of these lawsuits going around. Someone works salaried for 10 years, without complaining, with both the employee and the employer content with the situation and of the assumption that it is appropriate under the law. Then there is an unrelated dispute, and some lawyer shows up to demand tens of thousands in back overtime since the employee shouldn't have been exempt. It's a misapplication of the law, and it hurts everyone. Unless there is a record that someone didn't think they should be exempt, they shouldn't be able to sue for back wages.
Sure, the law defines what a contractor is, and companies should not be allowed to violate that. However, when someone willingly enters into a contract for specific compensation, they shouldn't be able to change the terms of the contract midway through and demand retroactive pay. It seems that our whole society is turning into vindictive, money-grubbing pricks who screw each other for a buck. Companies hate employees. Employees hate their companies. Customers hate the companies they buy from. Vendors hate their customers. All because some people have no integrity, and would rather make a little money they didn't earn than to be forthright, honest, and civil.
Then again, I might just be bitter.
The reason we put up with what companies dictate (in terms of pay and benefits) is generally because we don't have the muscle to push companies while they can push us (this is the original reason unions came into existance). But let's face it, we need each other (companies need people to work for them, and people need to work for companies). But when one side seeks to change the relationship to maximize their profit, why are we all surprised when the other side tries to push back. Some of you think the position of the contractors in this case is unethical. But can you tell me that corporations are always ethical when money is involved? If you say yes, I call bullshit. Everyone, people and corporations alike are all as ethical as they have to be when money is involved (or not as ethical as they can get away with).
Anyway, I say let them get as much as they can out of HP. Same goes for anyone else in that position. At least until some long term loyalty to employees is shown again.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
This is great for you but most of the contractors that I know are not in that situation. They are working for lower pay, little vacation time, have performance reviews without raises to follow them up. And are not contractors by chioce... They have families, homes, and long technical backgrounds. They are forced into accepting the lower wages in order to try to take care of there families. They have no benifits and insurance options that cost them half of thier wages, which are usually 10 to 20% below tha national average. We are not production workers we are engineers, techs, and managers that have watched long term employees be layed of and then come back the next day as a contractors for half the pay because there are no technical jobs out there. We take jobs with contracting agencies because they are are only option next to working for minimum wage and losing everything we own. We are struggling to survive. Most of us have spent several years in the industry and it is all we know. Most of us love the job and we are not looking for a quick buck. We are frustrated with seeing contractors being taken advatage of because of a bad economy.