What a May Day gift!
California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
171–180 of 260 posts
Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
#172It’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…
er not in my experience are you confusing w2 contractors hired from a job shop with real self employed ones.
Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, yours is a GREAT read. That's a very solid case for contractors and almost nobody will have a meaningful problem with it. I've done similar things in the CAD / data management space. A person with outside perspective, rare skills, experience, and most importantly, is the outside voice able to bring real options to the table along with production proven, time tested ways and means, is worth every penny. The…
> A person with outside perspective, rare skills, experience, and most importantly, is the outside voice able to bring real options to the table along with production proven, time tested ways and means, is worth every penny. Such a contractor would likely meet the new "ABC" standard in the linked article, though. Those aren't the positions that are in danger of being eliminated, it's the "grunt contractor" folks who…
How so? if you sign a contract for several month's as a plc your better off than a regular employee with only 2 weeks notice is easier to hire as they have no contract.
Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
My thoughts exactly. Some people seem to be reading this ruling as though no "tech company" could hire any "tech contractor". However, I read it: if a hypothetical company doesn't for example design databases as their bread and butter they could hire someone else to.
In the UK contractors tend to get hired as temporary stop gaps at a much higher rate than perms (like double). Either to cover a need for a project that won't last long term or to fill the demand for more fingers on keyboards right now . Is that not how the US uses them? Then again UK programmers seem to earn much less than US programmers. Outside London it's like £50k for a senior dev ($70k?).
I think 50k is London rate - outside 40+ would be a lot
Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
#175Should the "employee" also have a say in this?
That's a good question. I think it is widely assumed that contractors would prefer to be employees, given the number of court cases where contractors have sued employers. (I don't remember a court case where an employee sued to be a contractor.)
I still remember the huge Microsoft settlement[1]. Well, huge for the time.
Employers want to commoditize the jobs they offer. It's in their best interest to be able to hire/fire with as little risk as possible. The dream for many companies would be "all employees are contractors" and no one gets benefits. Except, of course, management. They'll get huge salaries and great benefits. (I'm an officer of a 35 yr old corp.)
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/business/technology-temp-...
Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Contractors are almost always paid less in my experience after taking into effect stock grants and bonuses. The contracting agency probably gets a nice portion of the takehome though (for having the political capital of being on a preferred vendors list), so to the company they probably pay more than salary.
That's not a self employed contractor is (which is the focus of the question) just some one working through an agency - just ban w2 status or force them to convert to cheap umbrella companies as is the case in the UK.
Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
#177There are many types of work outside of Tech and Gig-worker (the two that most comments here focus on) in which workers are inappropriately classified as contractors in order to reduce carried risk and cost to the employer, but where the employer also exerts significant control over the time, place and manner in which the work is done. My own familiarity with this (through family who have experienced it) is in the he…
I was talking with someone recently, and they told me that all new Kaiser doctors are contractors. I was shocked. I don't know if it is true. If it is, I hope this decision reverses that trend. Can you imagine coming out of medical school, passing the boards, doing your time as a slave as some hospital, to get an offer as a contractor? And all that, with an amazing amount of debt, that you assumed you could pay off easily, but now you're not so sure? Wow.
Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
#178Earlier 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.
I think there is valid confusion to be had in interpreting this statement.
Usually, when a statement of "choose either x or y" is made, then the only valid options are exclusively x or exclusively y (None and Both are not valid).
Though, when the statement of "if either x or y then do action" is made, then the action is done with any of three valid options: x, y, or x and y (only None is not valid).
To change the second statement to mean the first, you could say "if only x or only y then do action." The "only" cancel Both as being an option.
Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
#179MM I just though isn't this going to kill Hollywood as the entertainment biz is run off "contractors"
I think A & B would catch most film tv and theater professionals the gaffer gets told what lighting effect to go for also everyone on a show gets told when and where to show up on the call sheet.
Re: California Supreme Court Transforms the Test for Who Is an Employee
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK contractors tend to get hired as temporary stop gaps at a much higher rate than perms (like double). Either to cover a need for a project that won't last long term or to fill the demand for more fingers on keyboards right now . Is that not how the US uses them? Then again UK programmers seem to earn much less than US programmers. Outside London it's like £50k for a senior dev ($70k?).
I think 50k is London rate - outside 40+ would be a lot
Not these days, I'm constantly getting emails offering £45-50k for East Midlands jobs, up from £40-45k the year or two before. 4 years ago I got offered 3 jobs in the East Midlands at or close enough to £40k, with one having bonuses too.
You can go check on any job site, indeed, cwjobs, whatever. CWJobs claim the average is up to £62k for London now, and that's of all dev jobs, not just senior ones:
https://www.cwjobs.co.uk/salary-checker/average-csharp-devel...