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Comment by noarchy | Hacker News Reader

>According to the Internal Revenue Service, a business that hires an independent contractor is not entitled to dictate how or when the contractor performs a job.

Maybe things work differently in the US vs here in Canada, but here "independent contractors" are often treated like employees, particularly in IT. You'll often see such contractors, who are technically working under their own (solo) company rather than for the client - working alongside salaried employees, doing the same work, under almost identical circumstances.

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It's the same here in the US... The company I work for hires countless contractors that are required to work set hours and treated exactly like employees, except they're not given benefits, etc (in principle, they're paid more, though).

The biggest oddity is that I know of several "contractors" who have worked full-time for the same company for _multiple decades_ that are now being laid off with no severance and no warning.

Obviously, that's the advantage from the company's viewpoint, and you don't go into one of those roles without being aware that it could/will happen, but still... I've never understood how being a "contractor" somehow completely sidesteps employment laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misclassification_of_employees...

I saw the same when I worked at a defense contractor. These workers did the exact same things as regular employees, and the only thing different about them was a company name on their badge and their names being in all-caps on the roster. (Or maybe if you spotted them making a photocopy of their custom time sheets.)

It's a reminder to me of how far the accepted practice diverges from the law as written, in which this exact arrangement isn't supposed to happen. (Just like racial/destination discrimination and underinsurance and abuse of contractor status aren't supposed to happen with regulated taxicabs.)

Wrt benefits though, I've worked in such a role myself (after moving to the Bay) and the contracting company covers them.

There are some differences, however. Work hours are dictated by the hours of the facility, not by the government client (with the exception of shift employees, such as security, whose rosters are controlled by their companies). Government employees aren't permitted to direct work of contractors; they have to go through the contracting officer who then contacts the contracting company's manager for all requests. Part of the contracts' language specifies interchangeability of personnel (as long as they are similarly qualified and possess the necessary clearances). And the contractors are employees of the company awarded the contract.

If you had a different experience than that, then your former office is at serious risk of a lawsuit.

To clarify, I was talking about (individual) contractors who worked at the defense contractor facility. They didn't deal directly with government employees, but their work was directed by defense contractor managers.

Thanks for the clarification. I agree that is a weird situation. It definitely appears they were misclassified.

That's my point: it seems to be so routine and yet ostensibly illegal. But if their situation was anything like mine, they did have an employment relationship (with taxes etc paid), but it was with the contracting agency.

It doesn't sidestep the laws. Most likely these people are misclassified and the employer is breaking the law.

This is why Microsoft only allows contractors to work at Microsoft for 18 months at a time, with a mandatory 6 months in between contracts. They got busted for misclassifying employees as contractors.

Absolutely correct. I worked 7 years at a mega-bank that always had "contractors" on staff. Shortly after I arrived, the bank was wrapping up lawsuits brought by former contractors who (correctly) argued that they were misclassified and should have been employees. From that point on, the bank became very strict about enforcing the same 18/6 rule you saw at Microsoft.

In the US I more often see "contractors" who are official employees of a consulting firm and work alongside and onsite with normal employees of the firm's client. If the client ends the contract, the firm will soon fire you if there's not other work. I tend to think this is the worst of both worlds for the actual worker.

Working in an at-will employment state, I find the difference between this kind of contracting, and FTE, to be equivalent.

  * You can quit/terminate your contract at any point (though some have penalties)
  * Your employer can fire/terminate your contract at any point for almost any reason. 
  * If there's no work, you're out of a job.
  * Salary and benefits packages - contracts tend to balance toward salary 
    and FTE toward benefits, but almost everyone provides *something*.
  * FTE coworkers and contractors intermingle - everyone's human, everyone eats lunch.

In practice, the client has zero friction in firing you (legally or from HR). Especially if contractors are working remotely, firing one is as simple as filing an IT ticket to cut off privileges/pay. As a worker you get none of the tax benefits or freedom of contracting, and you're even more disposable than a normal employee.

The same happens in the Netherlands. However, that doesn't mean that it's legal. It's just that it's so convenient for both parties and IT contractors are so well paid that nobody challenges it.

I assume this is the same in most countries. IT contracting in it's current form is only viable because it's well paid and IT workers are rarely organised.

(And there's a major vested interest in keeping it this way, hence the rapid removal of this excellent article from the frontpage of HN yesterday: http://socialistworker.org/2015/06/24/class-capitalism-and-t... )

I work as a contractor in The Netherlands and currently wouldn't want it any other way. The payment is indeed good and there's plenty of work available for the (at least somewhat) capable developer, so in fact this puts the developer in a very powerful position.

Also, it seems we still have a shortage of qualified IT personnel in the coming decade(s), so there's little reason to stop doing contract work and become a permanent employee.

Regarding the removal of that article: it's not "vested interests" flagging that necessarily. Many users (including me) may have either found it offensive or overly political, and flagged it because it consisted of inflammatory political ranting where the political talking points distracted too much from any substance that article might have had.

Have you actually read the article? None of that applied. It was extremely factual and well constructed with a mildly left of center bias. Nothing compared to the extreme libertarian bias of half the non-technical articles on HN.

This is just a knee jerk reaction to the word "socialist".

There was nothing offensive of inflammatory about the article unless you consider the very existence of progressive though offensive.

This happens a lot in the US too; it's unfortunately a side effect of the hiring policies at most companies. Many companies would prefer to pay $150,000 per year to a contractor than pay $100,000 per year plus benefits. The contractor route gives you more cost certainty, plus when you lay off a contractor by canceling or refusing to renew the contract, it doesn't count as a layoff. Using contractors this way allows companies to respond more quickly to negative economic conditions, and at a lower cost (you often have to pay severance to employees).

When I was a contractor I had more control of my hours. Employers preferred 40 hours, but would accept less depending on their situation. Other than that, I worked alongside internal people and did the same work.

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