They will only win if you are violating labor law. Why is that so hard for you to understand. If they hadn’t violated labor law they would have appealed and won. And here you are 26 years later trying the case again on a “silly web forum”.
Which Microsoft would never have hired them, if that was the case, they would have hired normal FTEs.
So either 1) hire contractors and treat them as contractors (without the employee style treatment), or be sued later.