Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Opinions on the State Breaking Its Own Law Against Employee Misclassification?
An anonymous reader writes: I've had the privilege of developing software as an independent contractor for various agencies of a particular state for many years. These past few, however, have seen changes: now I, and almost every other contractor I know, are being managed very differently. This state is now making a widespread practice of using the businesses it awards contracts to as staffing agencies, knowing full well that the people coming in are 1099s and receive none of the benefits or protections of regular employees. These contractors are expected to be on site full-time, are not allowed to use their own hardware or software, and are managed alongside, and perform substantially the same work as other, regular employees. This is apparently done to cut costs.
The State has no legal risk here — that rests solely on the businesses it awards contracts to. But given that this particular state takes a hard line against misclassifying employees, this strikes me as profoundly hypocritical. I am not here to ask for legal advice. Indeed, I have already retained counsel in this matter. Considering additional detail that I won't get into here, Federal law is likely being broken. Since this is also one of the states that have the strict 'three prong' test for classifying employees, the State's own law is definitely being broken.
I thought, maybe somebody should say something. But my lawyer's reaction surprised me. He said — this isn't a big deal, you could just go find another client. And you know what? He's right. I could totally do that. Maybe since we in the IT industry tend to be well paid, nobody should care, and there's no reason complain. I'm not asking for legal advice or a recommendation as to what I should do personally; I'm still forming an opinion on the larger issue here, and I'd like you to share yours.
The State has no legal risk here — that rests solely on the businesses it awards contracts to. But given that this particular state takes a hard line against misclassifying employees, this strikes me as profoundly hypocritical. I am not here to ask for legal advice. Indeed, I have already retained counsel in this matter. Considering additional detail that I won't get into here, Federal law is likely being broken. Since this is also one of the states that have the strict 'three prong' test for classifying employees, the State's own law is definitely being broken.
I thought, maybe somebody should say something. But my lawyer's reaction surprised me. He said — this isn't a big deal, you could just go find another client. And you know what? He's right. I could totally do that. Maybe since we in the IT industry tend to be well paid, nobody should care, and there's no reason complain. I'm not asking for legal advice or a recommendation as to what I should do personally; I'm still forming an opinion on the larger issue here, and I'd like you to share yours.
...what's the question?
It is not true the state is free from legal risk. I was in a somewhat similar situation and I was arguing that the contracting company was a sham and I was actually an employee of the original company.
I received a big check to shut me up.
... yeah, funny, huh? The state doesn't judge itself harshly for that.
Unfortunately, I often find myself in the minority on points like this. But here's where I typically come out:
Everyone has a responsibility to report wrong-doing, when they see it. Even if this is not a legal responsibility, it is a moral one. Certainly, one can take this too far, and become a nitpicker. It's not one's responsibility to be a nitpicker. But it is one's responsibility to set a reasonable line in the sand, and when one sees that line crossed, then act accordingly.
I get the sense you wouldn't be asking the question if you thought this fell into the category of nitpicking. The fact you feel the need to ask the question in the first place probably provides the answer right there. I believe you have a moral responsibility to not just look the other way. And this might involve risk to you. But where would we be as a society if people were afraid to take such risks in order to fix wrongs?
"I asked my legal expert for advice, but I didn't like it. Hey, you folks on the internet got any better opinions?"
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
this is a 1099-style post.
IANAL, but ...
Many years ago, I worked in the USA for a Canadian Corp. The Corp. routinely bounced payroll checks, delayed sending payroll checks, or wrote payroll checks for less than the amount owed. Every time theses things happened, the Corp. claimed it was difficulties with exchange rates and transfers to the USA bank from which pay checks were drawn for USA employees.
I happened to work right across the street from a US Federal Building, so one day, several co-workers and myself walked over to inquire about any remedies that might be possible. We provided documentation to the helpful FBI agent who said bouncing payroll checks could fall under FBI jurisdiction. I also happened to mention the situation to my congressman who I knew socially as a long time family friend. A few weeks later, a Treasury Department person called and told us that nothing could be done to induce better behavior by a Canadian Corp. with respect to USA "employees", and furthermore, we weren't employees. We were considered independent contractors from the point of view of the Canadian Corp. Apparently, a shell USA Corp. employed us as regular employees with benefits and then contracted with the parent Corp. for our time. We received W-2 instead of 1099, but we were effectively 1099 contractors. The Treasury representative seemed to be telling us that we were not protected by USA labor laws or banking laws.
Treasury representative's statements didn't seem right, and we asked many questions to clarify our understanding. Several of us asked a local lawyer about the situation, and the answer we got was that any court action would have to start in Canada, and any settlement would be consumed by attorney fees. In other words, it wasn't worth it.
After a while of continued mistreatment, all of the USA employees except a few salesmen who worked on commission moved on to greener pastures. Such is life.
Yes..and SHHHHHHH!!!
Don't start complaining about this. Those of us in the 1099 contracting game LIKE it this way!!
There's nothing magical or that difficult about paying your own benefits!! Medical is easy, just get a high deductible policy (and many of them since obama care came out are this way) of about $1200 deductible, you can also set up a HSA (Health Savings Account) and sock away about $3K annually pre-tax....for your routine meds and co-pays, etc.
You set up a solo-401K or IRA..whatever you like...and you know how to negotiate your bill rate to cover medical/retirement/timeoff and you're good to go. This way, you generally have MUCH more freedom with work (no more fucking waiting to *EARN* vacation hours...take them off when you want), and you can write off many things, driving to/from job site is a good one, equipment, and as I've mentioned before, if you set yourself up as a S-corp of one person, and pay yourself a reasonable salary W2 from your own company, you only have to pay employment taxes (SS and medicare) on that portion of your money, the rest falls through to personal income taxes at EOY..where only state and federal are taxes..and thats AFTER you take your deductions out.
All you have to do, is be able to wear your big boy pants and keep up with a bit of paperwork yourself, be responsible with money (save enough to pay EOY taxes, make sure to pay quarterly taxes)...and also good idea to hire a CPA (deductible).
You get more freedom to work like you wish, and you have a fighting chance to keep more of your hard earned money from the fscking IRS. And it is perfectly legal...
There is NOTHING wrong with being a 1099 contractor, frankly, I think it is much better than being a regular W2 wage slave...and these days, face it, you don't get any more job security as a regular employee than you do as a contractor...so, you might as well contract and get the BILL rate that goes with it.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What are my options to stop it? That's all he's asking. It's especially scary because the same govt that should be looking out for these abuses is actively participating in them. This is what happens when workers lose solidarity. They'll come for you and your wages next.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
One of the genius aspects of Anglo-American common law is that as a general principle breaking a law doesn't matter if there are no damages. The rise of the regulatory state is a big exception to this principle, unfortunately.
Yes, theoretically there may be a problem in the future. But if nobody is being hurt now, nobody should care. _When_ people are hurt by this, then those hurts can bring a lawsuit.
Waiting for damages to occur might be foolish, but it's much less foolish than allowing people or the state to dictate behavior solely based on imagined harms.
I'm not an attorney, but generally speaking the distinctions between being a contractor and an employee don't matter independently of some other dispute, such as taxation, workplace regulations, etc. They're a form of status, the question of which is irrelevant outside of a real dispute.
With luck you could make a fortune. Any time a business claims a person is an independent contractor numerous state and federal agencies are defrauded. Workman's Compensation can not charge the usual fees. Unemployment is also defrauded. Programs such as food stamps and welfare suffer losses and others I probably have not thought of. For example the supposed contractor will take all kinds of illegal deductions from his taxes. The fraud it enables is endless. In theory the various agencies could enforce existing laws and you would get a substantial living just on turning in the companies that violate the law. But here is the sad and demonstrable fact. Businesses who get caught get very mild punishments. The actual punishments are so few and so cheap that the businesses keep right on with the violations. Compare it with companies that make huge sums defrauding the public. They steal a billion bucks and are ordered to pay back only one hundred million. The message is loud and clear. Business is above the law and above the government. In my area the great offender is the phone sales and telemarketing racket. I could easily catch and turn in three companies every day of the week except Sunday. Almost none of these employees are in fact contractors. And pretty much every phone call they make is criminal. But make note that the government rarely shuts them down and when they do the punishments are so minor that they open up right away a few blocks down the street. American business is pretty much a criminal conspiracy and nothing more than that.
Private Prisons provide sub-standard food and medical care, that no state employee could possibly defend.
Charter schools sometimes provide religious instructions that the state could not get away with.
Private adoption agencies reject people based on illegal standards.
Charities insist on certain religious requirement that the states could not do.
One of the secrets is that when the private contractor gets caught, they lose the contract - and their senior employees start/join another company doing the exact same thing, and gets a new contract with the same state.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Because they live in the real world, not some socialist thought experiment.
Unions are dead. Get over it.
no more fucking waiting to *EARN* vacation hours...take them off when you want
you do understand that when a company offers vacation, you get PAID for the time off, right? what you are "earning" is paid time off, not simply the right to take time off.
I am not a lawyer, but it seems like this matter likely has the potential to be turned into a class action matter.
Not to troll for work on /., but if you need counsel with experience in successfully litigating large scale class action suits, get in touch with me. (replace the ve with rmstrong at gmail in my name) We work with some of the largest law firms in the world and routinely handle class action suits. I cannot list specific disputes due to client confidentiality, but they are some of the largest matters that have been settled in the last decade and have received plenty of media attention. There are plenty of firms who are not representing the large state that you speak of and they can easily pass a conflict check.
If your attorney is advising you to go find another job and more or less ignore this, he is not the right person to be representing you. You are aware of the extent of the issue and the potential ramifications. Find a firm that also understands that and you all can make significant amounts of money.
...what's the question?
The big question is whether state misreporting of employees and IC's is a big deal. Anonymous poster sees gross hypocrisy by his government and is told by legal counsel that it's not a big deal, wants others to weigh in so that he can better conceptualize how he should feel about this--he's looking to third parties for feedback on something that strikes him as morally suspect and affects his life. That's actually an incredibly healthy, rational, and unusual attitude.
Is it a big deal? Yes and no. It's common to have people misrepresent employees as ICs in order to avoid the legal responsibilities of employment--that's *why* the IRS and various states crack down on it. So it's certainly not an *unusual* deal. And if you're making bank, it may not affect you much personally.
But it may affect a lower-income worker who gets treated the same way by the state and is denied overtime benefits, or the woman who's discriminated against by the state's hiring process and finds it much harder to sue, or the corrections officer who doesn't get a pension, for example. So there's some reason to call the state out on it for the public good.
There's *also* a strong argument that they should be called out on it because *they should have to put up with* the employment rules everyone else follows. They're the ones who change the rules, so they should experience having to live with them.
So there are reasons to responsibly disclose, but not much personal benefit to you. You risk a whistleblower sign over your head for the rest of your career unless you do it intelligently. You could sort of go a middle-ground, where you don't go to the press, for example, but do include a note on your taxes that the state has deliberately misclassified you as an independent contractor as part of a systemic process that affects many thousands of employees. I have no idea if the IRS would do anything with it (I'm guessing not), but you would be reporting it. Ah, here we go, the IRS has a way to report fraud:
http://www.irs.gov/Individuals...
this is your problem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
of course, in a sane society, rather than tearing down state employees for their lavish benefits and income, people would be insisting their own salaries be raised to match, to reverse how their salaries and benefits have been gutted the last few decades so the CEO can buy more gold toilets and mistresses
look to scott walker's effort to gut unions: there's a lot more of that from his playbook coming across republican controlled state houses soon
unfortunately the average american is a hate filled small minded seflish bigot, and would rather tear others down to their level than work together and build a sane society. good job, crab mentality assholes. plutocrats take more and more, you get less and less, and all you can do is boil and hate and rage and tear everyone else down around you
question is why anyone sane and intelligent ever votes republican. not that the democrats are much better but they obvious ARE better
rather than holding out for ideological perfection that will never come, vote strategically: push society closer in the direction you want, don't expect to society to arrive at where you are automatically with one vote, and you're just holding out for that magic vote that will never come
almost as bad as hate filled propagandized fox news watching crab mentality bigots is ivory tower ideological dreamers who will never get involved and only judge in acid cynicism from a distance. the real world is about compromises and corners, never perfection you airheads
vote strategically
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"driving to/from job site is a good one" ... get a lawyer!). That said, most people I've known who expense their cars do literally no business with them, keep no log books, and have never been audited. Just beware that the law may come down hard on you if you're unlucky enough to be called on it.
Mind you I'm in Canada, but this is specifically NOT in the rules for allowable travel if to/from work sites if part of regular routine. Plus here, you have to log all hours travelled if you're expensing against a 'company car'. Travel as far as I have determined only applies between multiple job sites in the performance of said job (like plummer from one job to the next, but not to/from home. Maybe if your home is also your official office
I've been a contactor a long time and its great because my job category is richly paid and in demand. Now imagine -everyone- is forced to become contractors to get a job (why not if the 'distinction' is removed). The prospect for them is a lot less rosy. There are good reasons why we have employee laws. There are many contracts that do honor the loose distinction between the two, so I suggest finding those.
Bye!
Problem solved.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Because eventually all unions devolve into what we have in Chicago where an employer has to hire 4 people to do the job of 1 person, not because it makes sense, but because "union rules".
You clearly demonstrate this point
unfortunately the average american is a hate filled small minded seflish bigot
with this remark
question is why anyone sane and intelligent ever votes republican.
It could be worse, you could be vested in their pension program. The fact is that human beings are not well equipped to manage 7 billion human souls on earth today. The economics is too complex and dynamic for our mammalian lives and tribal clans to fully conceive. Even IF everyone was fair and agreed to a system, it would likely fail to function for very long before short stick ends were everywhere. Perhaps the idea that there are perhaps one billion jobs for seven billion people should be a clue. The fact that half of those are not profit driven is the next clue. There will never be enough money around for society to be smooth and steady for long. If money is what we lack, then everyone is poor. We need to learn to exchange a little more social currency, because central banks will always be hoarders. Quantitative easing is a numbers game, but its hardly sufficient at building highways or educating brain surgeons for very much longer. My point is that, yes you're absolutely right, it ain't like it was, and its not even close to how you think it might be. Its a dynamic force that is frankly getting to be too much to manage without tremendous flexibility and open mindedness, until we simply surrender to nature. Nature is, after all, where this all started. Human nature may be where it stands, for the time being. Like in Cairo, Athens, Rome - the Golden Ages come and go. The Empire must be getting a little week at the knees if they outsource IT.
The state can do whatever it wants. If you think laws apply to the state and federal departments then you were either born yesterday or have no clue as to how the real work actually works.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Don't start complaining about this. Those of us in the 1099 contracting game LIKE it this way!!
We do so long as the compensation is appropriate for it. If you're working through an agency and being paid the same as you would working W-2, then you're almost certainly losing money doing it since you have to cover your half of Social Security, in addition to doing quarterly taxes and generally keeping up with more paperwork as you mentioned.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Actually...someone is looking to really FUCK UP a good thing many of us have going.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
There's nothing magical or that difficult about paying your own benefits!! Medical is easy, just get a high deductible policy (and many of them since obama care came out are this way) of about $1200 deductible, you can also set up a HSA (Health Savings Account) and sock away about $3K annually pre-tax....for your routine meds and co-pays, etc.
Bullshit. The cheapest high deductible ObamaCrap policy that my wife and I (both contractors) can get in MN has a $13,000 out of pocket and costs us $8000 a year. For insurance we don't use.
Yeah, it's easy but it ain't cheap. All we want is a catastrophic policy, but we are forced to buy a POS that don't need in order to grease the pockets of Obama's campaign contributors. And this crap is going up approximately 50% in 2016. We'll probably drop the crap and just pay the fine. We'll save a lot of money. "But you might need that hideously expensive insurance some day". Perhaps, but if we were allowed to just buy a classic high deductible catastrophic policy, we'd be fine. But we can't. If we buy a catastrophic policy, the fucking ACA won't let us contribute to our HSA and we still get fined for not having ObamaCrap. AND on top of that, the fucking law only allows you buy one for 90 fucking days anyway! Bastards.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
That was the point of the parents comments.
so negotiating a fixed amount of vacation ahead of time in your contract qualifies, as the parent post states, "taking time off when you want"?
good try.
When I was referring to expensing travel, I was referring to the mileage you get to write off for gas. I'm working from home now, so not up on current value, but it used to be like $0.58/mi or so? When doing this I just kept a log book in the car and recorded the odometer start and end when traveling to job site,etc.
CA won't take that from you? You should still be able to do it for your federal returns.....
But no, I'm very conservative in my business. I write off everything I can, but I am careful to not do anything to raise red flags. I don't write off part of my house as 'office', that often raises flags....but there is no need to try to push it or abuse it when it comes to deductions, just stay within the law and reasonable and you still are further ahead, IMHO, than you are in W2 land.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's not that unions are dead. Unions are very much alive in some places and working for everyone's betterment. Many nurses' unions fall into this.
Unions have seriously declined (they peaked at only about a third of all workers in the 1950s), but that's because protections have been built into the law to ensure that most of those things unions fought for are available to all workers.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
$1200 is not a high deductible, and hasn't been for some time.
I was a W-2 contractor for 7 years until corporate policy forced them to convert me. Got my 2009 15% pay cut back, fully covered the difference in health insurance, and got paid vacation - net win. No more or less job security.
But I've also done 1099 work, and it took me a while to get the hang of it. When I did, I focused exclusively on getting the work done. This gave me really mornings, really early end of days, and most Fridays off. And, I know kinda weird, but I terminated my own contract when there was no more to do. They never intended to hire me on full time, which I knew..
A 1099 should be able to:
Use whatever tools they choose to do the work, with reasonable accommodations for systems, languages, platforms, etc in the IT world.
Work wherever hours they find necessary, while being available for reasonable meetings, collaborations, and reports.
Be expected to deliver a definable project, product, or service with a definable timeframe or deadline.
Not be expected to manage employees or other contractors unless part of aaaspecific team defined in advance.
Not be expected to perform work that can be defined by hours worked, especially if that definition could lead to defining some work as overtime.
It is possible that the state may exempt itself from federal law, but I wouldn't count on it. I've also been part of three DOL enforcement actions, two for overtime and one for disclosure and failure to pay benefits and severance according to contract. It's not always a good idea to try to rat out an employer. Labor may also audit you. And then the IRS piles on. It does not get better very fast.
Given a choice, I might prefer 1099 in the future, but a W-2 contractor is not a bad gig, so long as you understand that you probably have lightly or no wage security, no tenure, and so no real security at all other than the client's integrity and your agency's lack thereof.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Show floors are one of the places where union control got *WAY* out of hand. When someone paying to rent space for a booth can get into trouble--and sometimes even be fined--for emptying a trash can because of union rules, it's gone overboard. It contributes to the sky-high cost of exhibits and puts small companies at a disadvantage.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
If you're through a consulting company that sells your time to the state and managed like an employee then you're not an employee of the state. You're an employee of that consulting company. The arrangement between the state and your employer is one thing, and your arrangement with the consulting company is another. Your company can't sell your time on a regular schedule to the state and then tell you you're a contract employee. That doesn't mean the state can't contract for a company's employees to be assigned to work on-site at the state's offices, though.
If you're on contract with the state directly, then they should treat you like a contractor. If they manage you as an employee, they need to employ you internally. If they want to keep you as a contractor, they should give you those freedoms.
You need to know that this isn't just about you. Allowing yourself to be treated as an employee and compensated as a contractor weakens everyone else's position, too. In fact, there's probably a union like AFSCME that would be very interested to talk to you about this.
American unions aren't dead, they are just corporations allegedly devoted to the related of their members.
In reality, most are devoted to taking large salaries, ensuring their continued existence, and influencing legislation to achieve those goals.
When their members realize they have TWO corporate masters, where non union workers only have ONE, then things can change. And as the unions strangle their corporate adversaries, they shed members. Eventually the leadership 'retires'.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Make that "devoted to the welfare of their members.". Touch keyboards...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
the whole point of having a State is that there is one set of rules for State actors and another set of rules for everybody else. Qualified immunity, massive pollution, wasting resources, welching on promises, breaking every damn law on the books when it furthers wealth and power; how about you go work for a business that's not so wildly corrupt? - heck, even on Wall Street you'd do better.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Every single contract I worked on save for one required that you use the company's equipment on site due to security requirements of the job. Every single one.
This isn't some weird "breach of regulations" -- it's the norm.
WTF are you bothering with a lawyer for? Aren't you paid enough to just do your damned job and STFU? You think you're going to "cash out" with some big lawsuit?
Even if you do cash out, expect to be blacklisted by every agency across the country when they find out what you've done, and never to work again.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Rampant.
Illegal.
Despicable.
So I get to do all of the work of an HR benefits person, a secretary, an accountant, a corporate lawyer, AND my own job on top of that, plus get no vacation benefits or sick days, and get to pay a big chunk more in extra taxes, all for a bump in pay? It sounds like considerably more bookkeeping. I'd rather do the job I'm specialized in, than do 5 different jobs badly.
Still, I'm with you on this - I really hate when politicians and agencies or anyone for that matter imposes rules on others, then exempts or ignores the rules themselves.
Since you are a 1099 you are able to deduct business related expenses from your tax return that you cannot otherwise take as a W-2. Eg, a computer at home, internet access, cell phone, professional memberships, publications, conferences, all to keep up with your profession. You might be able to deduct some car expenses but since you drive to the same location every day this is generally not allowed. Are you required to wear any specific clothes, like no jeans or shorts? If so then those can be expensed. Also the costs of some insurance can be expensed. And you don't need to be an LLC or have a fed tax ID. There's a long list of expenses, and I suspect your income is modest so the chance of an audit is very low.
... look it up. The idea is that lawmakers are not bound by the very laws they write because they could have written themselves immunity. IOW, the boss rules.
This is deeply unAmerican and rooted in fealty to power rather than all power flowing from the people and laws (& Constitutions) first and foremost binding governments. That states (and the Feds too!) [ab]use this convenient feature merely shows them to by tyrants, perhaps fearsome but unworthy of respect.
Was just going to say. We've got a guy at work that isn't a contractor by any definition of the word, but he likes it that way for everything you just said.
Either you're an employee and get loaded up with benefits of being an employee, or you're a contractor and you get loaded up with benefits of being an employee for the contracting company. That is not a misclassification.
Now if you're a one man contractor then I would question your own policies. Not sure what the laws are like where you are but in some countries even if you act as your own sole contractor you are effectively your own employee and have an obligation to pay your own retirement fund, pay your own sick leave / holidays and provide yourself benefits. Naturally all this is made up by the higher fees contractors charge companies compared to how much an employee is paid. The difference is overhead and benefits.
Or am I missing something.
The fact that you can't understand
ooooh here comes the troll!
Nor does completely redefining what they said in order to make yourself look less ignorant. Which, btw, wasn't even a good try.
on the contrary, i was going on ONLY what was said, you're the one that's reading between the lines.
no more fucking waiting to *EARN* vacation hours...take them off when you want
contractors most certainly do not simply take vacation when they want. their clients need things done just as much as an employer needs things done from its employees.
sure you can take as much "vacation" as you want, as long as you don't need the pay. however, i wouldn't count unemployment as as vacation.
where the hell have you been? Plus you're not paying into unemployment. It's not there for when _you're_ laid off, it's there to keep you from competing with desperate people when _they_ get laid off.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"contractors most certainly do not simply take vacation when they want. "
You don't just say "This week is off limits, I have something scheduled?" Assuming that's well ahead of time, of course, not the day before a week off. I work with 1099s who do exactly that. You can't just decide Monday morning that you're going to take a week off, but you can schedule it at your own pleasure, which if we translate, means whenever you want. If you have a contract that specifies otherwise, you are sucking the syphilitic cock of an unholy form of government.
I *EARN* vacation every paycheck. My vacation time on my pay stub goes up every time I get paid, and I'm a normal non-1099 salaried person. It didn't start at 40 or 80 or 120 or whatever, it started at 0 and I earn more every week. I have worked for companies where I get the agreed upon amount on 1 January, but it is not a legal requirement.
I work with a 1099 who earns more than me, in take home pay. That covers the cost of a paid vacation, insurance, and other things. Taking vacation for a week means not having a paycheck to cover that week, but that should have been factored in during salary negotiations.
I'm not sure if you are a 1099, a disgruntled 1099, or completely ignorant. I'm not a 1099, but I can assure you that there was no troll, unless it was you. And you will have to forgive me for responding to you, except that trolls don't do that, so ignore that I did if you are actually a troll. As you probably will regardless, based on your comments.
Then the answer is "Sorry if I've caused you a bit of trouble, eh?"
Oh, you forsaw and forreplied to my reply with the old "classic high deductible catastrophic policy" crap? Do you realize how much of my paycheck goes to insurance? Do you know how much of my employer's contribution goes towards insurance?
You probably don't. But you probably get paid for it. If you don't know, you really should find out. And if you aren't paid for it, you really should re-negotiate.
I don't care how much it costs. I care whether you get paid above rate to compensate for your employer not contributing. Because that's life for a 1099.
Insurance you don't use means that you have not factored the future into account. I do wish you that healthy life you are imagining, but it probably won't happen. Just statistics. I had a $128k med insurance bill, and I paid less than $2k out of pocket. I didn't need insurance before that, but I did need it at that time. Or maybe you and your wife make bank and can afford that.
I was asymptomatic prior to incurring that bill. Maybe you are asymptomatic as well.
The federal government and universities do the same. For all the talk about fair employment, I don't know that many leaders of large bureaucratic organizations have the ability to enforce fair employment practices on their people.
The bottom line is that offices that do this are not going to be good places to work, whether you're a contractor or an employee. I've worked in government for really great managers who were required by law to do stupid things to their employees. Government managers are often balancing contradictory requirements, and you end up with situations like this all the time.
As many idiots as there are posting here, I just want to state for the record that I less than three your post. "a bit of paperwork ... hire a CPA" sounds like a lot of time to me.
I've worked two state jobs as a permanent employee. One with the RI Department of Attorney General, the other with the RI Department of Secretary of State.
But I'll lay dollars to donuts you're talking about a state in the south.
My first software development internship out of College was for a decent sized insurance company who's programming workforce involved about 100 in house employees and 100 working as contractors. The contractors worked the same hours, used the same equipment, worked on the same teams, and in all general job aspects were identical to the contractors, but the in house employees had benefits and were allowed to attend company events, while the interns and contractors were barred from participating in any event paid for by the company.
All contractors were required to work through hiring agencies in what looked like an attempt to bypass federal wage and benefit laws, though this would probably be thrown out in court because they completely mirrored their in house employees in every aspect. As an intern, my manager tried to get me hired on as a contractor full time after college. Though my manager had approved a wage up to 45$ an hour for me, the hiring company assured me I wouldn't be able to start over $20 an hour as a software developer fresh out of college. The hiring agency I was to be routed through was setup by this company, which makes me suspect that someone was taking a cut from the contractors pay for themselves.
It took me 4 months of hand holding, about 10 emails, two in person meetings with HR, and one face to face with payroll for me to show them that they were rounding down every hourly employee's clocked hours worked, which was against the FLSA. Three months after I left the company for another that started me at $35 an hour, my old company sent me a check for $68, an audit of the wages actually owed from their time rounding.
The really interesting part to me was half the contractors were Indians on work visas who seemed to be making about $20,000 less each year than their peers. Meanwhile, there were a few 1099s making $100 an hour who were really worth half that. I suspect corruption and a bad HR department was draining this company of a lot of labor capitol.
No moral of the story, just my personal experience that I felt was related to the topic at hand.
now what happens when you're 50 an you actually need medical care? You've been in and out of contract gigs your whole life and you're past your "sell-by" date now. Good luck getting one of those cushy jobs with benefits after your relentless pursuit of a quick dollar causes them all to go away.
You're also skirting unemployment insurance. Remember, unemployment is _not_ for you to take. It's there so you don't end up competing in a race to the bottom with desperate wage slaves when the economy takes a minor dip. That way when you're contract comes up for renewal they don't say "that's great cayenne8, but we've got 80 folks with your same skill set offering to do the job for 1/3 the pay. Will you take 1/6?".
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The Republican party intentionally underfunded them to prevent enforcement. They also gave them a directive to audit a certain percentage of low income tax earners as part of the "compromise" that came with the earned income tax credit from the 90s. Both of these are verifiable facts. We've got a substantial part of the political power base that wants to lower wages. Discuss amongst yourselves if that's a good thing or not.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If you agreed to be an employee and they classified you as a contractor, then sue them. if you agreed to be a contractor knowing full well that you would be responsible for your own FICA, then live with it.
I don't understand why the government gets to decide if somebody is an employee or a contractor. If two parties agree to an employee or contractor relationship, then their agreement should determine the status of their relationship. A lot of these lawsuits involve people who knowing signed up as a contractor and even got paid extra, then later, after not paying their taxes, decided to sue the company for, well, abiding by the terms of their contract.
This has made it difficult for people who want to be contractors to enjoy long term contracts. I have multiple clients myself, but if I wanted to have one client that I worked for 40 hours per week at their office with their equipment, at their direction for 50 years and be paid on an hourly contract basis and pay my FICA, why should I not be allowed to do that? Nanny State-ism. That's why.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
there was a time after WWII that we didn't tolerate it. It's also coincidentally the best time in US History economically.
One thing I know for sure, the "State" is really our only hope. I can't think of anything that can stand up to the might of a Mega-Corp. Maybe the won't; maybe they'll always just be in cahoots. But I'm watching local gov'ts get picked apart one by one. They just don't have the power. If you want to get something done in America you use the federal gov't. That's how we got rid of Apartheid (we called it "Separate but Equal") and that's how we got Gay Marriage. I've never once seen a bunch of small disconnected states do anything about real oppression. It always took a bigger, better organized power stepping in.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The "managed very differently" aspect is just a new set of fancy expensive contractors with new security products to sell or rent.
Gov using contractors to watch over skilled contractors as they help gov upgrade to expensive new security.
The covert side of the gov and mil wanted the skills but no questions, no paper trail, no project names, multiple social security numbers, social media magic and an instant job interface between the public and private sector. That was harder to create but offers stories to different covert groups long term.
The private sector also needed ways to escape of paying all the local wages. Why not just hire a local cleared front company and have a long tail of cheap supply globally while meeting all the paper work. Disassembled and recreated with all the local paperwork. Multi nationals could then front for mil/gov grade work using lower wages and have the same legal standing for any mil/gov contract without traditional domestic costs.
The result is a perfect method of hiding projects, hiding global support by contractors for different projects, keeping costs hidden, reducing local wage claims and making top staff feel they are not been tracked.
At their level as they have passed all the tests and are trusted alone, with vast plain text databases...
Cleared staff feel they have an open database to transverse looking up projects and names without been logged. How they use access has been watched for decades.
The freedom to look at open, plain text databases allow 'everyone' to look at fake names, fake projects, fake tasks, fake support requests that are all traps waiting for any sign of been searched for at any level on any network.
The national media attention about leaks might induce random cleared staff to look up a wide variety of projects and names... and that can be noted.
The new classifying system is not designed to be understood. It is designed to understand and test every cleared worker all the time while offering freedom to the private sector, hide covert needs from all and keep security contractors funded.
Its not a new idea. The UK tried it in the 1910-40's, rapid expansion, new technology, experts, rushed language support. The win was understanding most embassy work/codes in use in Europe as used. The downside is the loss of internal vetting control long term.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I'm in a similar boat here. Did you perchance look into healthshares? I've been meaning to research them myself, but maybe you've already looked into them?
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Doubt it. Walker's not a guy who'd enforce the contractor/employee rules vigorously, and the OP specifically stated:
"But given that this particular state takes a hard line against misclassifying employees, this strikes me as profoundly hypocritical."
I think someone has to do something about that. Should do something about that. Because it is wrong, and because governments need to be held to the letter of the law if we're to be safe from them.
I managed a software development shop for a state agency until I retired, and we had contractors in the shop for large development projects, as there was a huge resistance to actually hiring people. So we would spend $140,000/year for really good developers, instead of hiring someone as a FTE for $50,000.
One governor had the HR agency implement a requirement that we ask interviewees what their minimum salary would be to join our shop, and then would approve a max offer several thousand dollars lower than that minimum. That made it kind of impossible to hire anyone with good skills and an understanding of their market worth.
I think you should hang these law breakers out to dry. But you need to understand that whistle-blowers often are hung out to dry themselves, and frequently have career ending events as that process winds up.
Think of the Irony!
Government employees have a very strong union that would probably love to have you (and all people in similar positions) as members (which would be required if you are declared employees). So they'd have their legal team handle it for you. Don't care to be a union member? Better drop the question then ...
Assuming the policy you're talking about covers two people -- your wife and you -- that's $333 per month per person. That's not that bad, man.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
It is people that would listen to what this lawyer says that are responsible for the rest of their fellow man having to suffer such bullshit treatment.
You shouldn't be asking shit of us, here. You should be suing and forming a class-action against the state, despite what your counsel has said (they don't want you to file because if you refuse to settle and win, you just cost them a fuckton of possible future work. They are NOT going to look out for your best interests. If they did, our legal system would not be as fucked as it is now.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I've been there, and the tax rules where I live drove me out. I think it was a requirement that I get no more than 70% income from a single source per quarter that drove me back to being an employee - full time plus more than 30% extra time somewhere else sucks along with juggling two employers who want you NOW when anything more than trivial turns up. Expect something like that in your area some day when tax authorities want to crack down.
You say the goal is "to cut costs", but what costs?
If the cost-savings comes from undermining a union, they probably would have sued already, so I'm guessing it's not that.
This shouldn't be a tax dodge, because 1099s should end up paying roughly the same federal and state tax, so it must be a reduction in actual compensation. Assuming that's the case, those being harmed look to be the 1099 employees themselves. As such, it would seem like a class action suit would be the appropriate course of action. If the state itself isn't willing to abide by the rule, it shouldn't expect others to either. The state should either follow the rule or repeal it.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
This behavior is nonsense and must be objected to!! What does allowing this and going along with it say about your belief in your own worth and the worth of others. By going along with this, you support a belief that you are worthless, a cog in the machine. You get to keep what you give away, which means you get to experience for yourself what you belive and pass on to others. You are MUCH more than it, and if you could see yourself in the totality of what the universe sees you as, you would be amazed. Object in whatever way you can, for your sake and everyone else's sake. Ask the universe to see what is TRUE (not what they "believe" and agree to") about yourself and everything around you. You do need to get very quiet and listen, but by persistence you will ultimately see it. If a sufficient number of people object, at least meantally, this kind of behavior can be undone.
A good point even if it is reductio ad absurdam. The key concept is "due process". Yes, sometimes a goverment (really the adminstration) may have cause to break some laws in the furtherence of law enforcement. These should be strictly limited and subject to open judicial and legislative oversight. "Sovereign immunity" is the analog to writs of assistance (general warrents) which the Courts have partially quashed with the interesting doctrine of "fruit of the poisoned vine".
Quod licet Iovis, non licet bovis ...
What is legal for Jupiter, is not legal for an ox ...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
It's a race to the bottom, unfortunately.
I think there are employers (mostly small and medium sized) who want to offer better benefits and pay to their employees but they can't because it would make them too un-competitive.
This is where legislation can play a role, by forcing companies to have things like pensions, minimum wages, paid vacation time etc. It allows companies to be on the same level playing field. Obviously it can't go too far; a $100/hr minimum wage with 100 paid vacation days per year is taking a bit far.
European style centre right here btw.
You can't just decide Monday morning that you're going to take a week off, but you can schedule it at your own pleasure, which if we translate, means whenever you want.
no, scheduling vacation weeks ahead of time during contract negotiations is not the same as "whenever you want".
and p.s., that's exactly how i've scheduled vacation, as a salaried, employee for 20+ years.
you are sucking the syphilitic cock of an unholy form of government
yep, you are clever.
I am a regular full time employee where I work.
so i guess you know what you're talking about then.
Vacations that any company gives you are not free time or vacations. You are paying for them by getting a lower salary/rate.
weird. everywhere i've worked, i've always made significantly more than the contractors.
roughly 1.8% more pay per hour
references? no? okay then.