Let’s say I’m a dry wall contractor. A general contractor comes along and offers me $20k for a job. I say “$25k?” and he says, “No, $20k.”

If I take the job I am not magically transformed into an employee of his, simply because I lacked the bargaining power to negotiate the rate.

The reason I am still a contractor is that I have absolute control over whether to agree to do that job at that price.

There are obviously lots of factors that are considered in the employee/contractor analysis. I just don’t feel that “ability to negotiate rate” is a particularly important one when “absolute ability to refuse fare” is in the picture.