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California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

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Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#121

Post by richardknop »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #45
taurath wrote: post #2

It’s interesting how even within companies a hard set social hierarchy has taken place between employees and contractors. The contractors tend to perform the exact same duties as employees, but are usually paid less, have worse future prospects (companies tend to like to hire from full time to full time), worse benefits and generally don’t get most of the perks of being an employee. For coders, is this because they’r…

In my experience, contractors are almost without exception worse than full-time employees in terms of the quality of their work. The contractors who stand out get selected for full-time work relatively quickly and consistently.

Most contractors I know get full time offers constantly and they keep turning them down :)

Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#122

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

bdcravens wrote: post #70
hardwaresofton wrote: post #34

Here is the new test (the ABC test if you're into unnecessary pet names for things): > If A, B, or C isn’t present, the worker is considered an employee. > A. Freedom from control over how to perform the service > B. Service is outside the business' normal variety or workplace > C. Worker is engaged in independently established role So if any one of those conditions isn't the case, you are an employee under the law.…

So a 1099 developer who is required to participate in daily standups will likely qualify as an employee I presume?

A collegue in the UK was forced^Wencouraged to start a limited and contract for his former employer. As far as I can tell that was purely a scheme to shift liabilities and to pay less taxes.

Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#123

Post by PhantomGremlin »

mabbo wrote: post #104
paulsutter wrote: post #44

The change seems immaterial to me except that it’s much clearer. The article author injects a social justice angle without describing any specific impact. Who is really affected by this? Any concrete examples?

FedEx, UPS, Amazon Logistics, basically every delivery company. Everyone in delivery these days is an "independent contractor" with no control over their route or hours, working for a business that does nothing but deliveries.

FedEx, UPS, Amazon Logistics, basically every delivery company.

I don't know about the rest of them, but your information is totally wrong about UPS. The "delivery" people are most definitely employees. Union employees, Teamsters in fact. Which means that UPS doesn't get to push them around all that easily. But which also means that the relationship is occasionally more confrontational than it should be.

https://teamster.org/divisions/package

Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#124

Post by mabbo »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #123
mabbo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FedEx, UPS, Amazon Logistics, basically every delivery company. Everyone in delivery these days is an "independent contractor" with no control over their route or hours, working for a business that does nothing but deliveries.

FedEx, UPS, Amazon Logistics, basically every delivery company. I don't know about the rest of them, but your information is totally wrong about UPS. The "delivery" people are most definitely employees. Union employees, Teamsters in fact. Which means that UPS doesn't get to push them around all that easily. But which also means that the relationship is occasionally more confrontational than it should be. https://team…

Huh, my mistake. Well, Amazon Logistics it certainly going to be in trouble. Dynamex works on a very similar model to them.

Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#125

Post by Shivetya »

simcop2387 wrote: post #5
derekp7 wrote: post #3

Does this affect "contract to hire" positions, where companies "try before you buy"? Further, can companies still get contractors through a contractor agency, assuming the workers are employees of that agency?

I doubt it'll affect agencies, since generally there's not a contract with the person but with the agency. No idea about the first case, this is definitely going to result in a lot of billable time for lawyers.

I am going to assume agencies will be the biggest benefactor here. Would be interesting to see if companies like uber/lyft don't spin off agency type setups to isolate the company from the service providers.

Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#126

Post by qaq »

volkfish55 wrote: post #18
taurath wrote: post #2

It’s interesting how even within companies a hard set social hierarchy has taken place between employees and contractors. The contractors tend to perform the exact same duties as employees, but are usually paid less, have worse future prospects (companies tend to like to hire from full time to full time), worse benefits and generally don’t get most of the perks of being an employee. For coders, is this because they’r…

Contractor are paid more, since they have to factor in the health insurance, taxes, unpaid vacation, perks, their own laptops, no need for office space, no 401k match. There is no reason they would ever get paid less. Maybe those with H1B visas who can get taken advantage of or outsourced contractors in Ukraine? Those contractors definitely get paid a fraction of US salary.

Well if you consider that the actual tax rate that contractor in Ukraine pays is like 4% and cost of living is 1/10th of Bay area also it's pretty hard to take advantage of people in a country were it takes about 1 week from starting to look for a job to getting one with good $ and decent perks. To put things in perspective a decent Senior java dev will make 55K-75K after tax in USD and pretty much 70-80% of that will be dsiposable income.

Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#127

Post by [deleted] »

icebraining wrote: post #107
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't an exclusive or; the English language lets that be interpreted as either an xor or or, and the reasoning of the context shows it to be an or. To iterate; the statement sets out two conditions, either of which are sufficient independent of the other, and claims that each of a number of services met one of those conditions.

Thanks, I'm not a native speaker, and I thought either/or was a xor.

[deleted]

Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#128

Post by briandear »

apendleton wrote: post #85
rdiddly wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the drivers aren't supplying a service "outside the business's normal variety." They're supplying the core Uber service. EDIT: They might be able to redefine themselves as purely a software company for the drivers to remain contractors.

Well, I suppose Uber would argue that their service isn't the providing if rides, but rather, the matchmaking of independent ride providers to prospective customers, and facilitation of payment. (Not that we should believe them.)

So are property owners employees of AirBnB?

Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#129

Post by IncRnd »

rtpg wrote: post #47
CamperBob2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if any one of those conditions isn't the case, you are an employee under the law. I see people in this thread wondering how it'll affect companies like Uber/Lyft/whatever 'B' is downright apocalyptic for contract developers in all sorts of roles. Sounds like massive judicial overreach to me. If your summary is accurate, I wouldn't expect that particular guideline to survive appeal.

If you are an IT company and all your work is done through contract developers, perhaps you _are_ going against the spirit of the law. Labor law is meant to protect those in the employer employee relationship, and most contractual work explicitly weaken this relationship a lot. So contractual work really shouldn't be the norm in a business. If you can't provide your main business without this set of people, then thos…

> If you can't provide your main business without this set of people, then those people are probably your employees?

That's not the case. A home builder may exclusively hire various sub-contracting companies to assemble a home, put in electricity, add finishings, etc. Those sub-contractors contract for many other home builders or landlords and are not employees of the home builders. That is the case, even though a home builder would go out of business without the sub-contractors.

Here is a different example. If a programmer works for one tech firm which calls the programmer a contractor, then if the programmer also create a personal website or side project for income, they may have established themselves as contractors.

Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee

#130

Post by kahnpro »

eecc wrote: post #119
kahnpro wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, most contracting developers are actually employees, and this position is just used as a way to skirt tax and labor laws. The abuse here isn't from the court, it's from devs and businesses. Devs don't care simply because the pay is high enough and there are a ton of jobs available.

Somewhat true, but to me what matters as a freelance is that I get to make the call when I’ve had enough of a particular contract, or choose whether to wait for a more interesting project, or just sign up to whatever conference I feel it’s important to my own career plan. When I was an employee I always had to beg to do anything, as well as suck up whatever shite projects the accounts would figure out would mean a sw…

That's great if you're working as an actual freelancer. But most that I've seen don't get such freedoms.

Another good test is, are you allowed to subcontract your work or not?

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