Have the Ability to Produce a Certificate of Insurance (COI) to Show;
a) General Liability Insurance
b) Workers Comp Coverage or Exemption
c) Auto Insurance
If the Work being done requires a Trade License;
a) The Individual Shall be Licensed
Or
b) The Individual Shall be Compensated by a Licensed Trade
I’ve been in the Field for 30 plus Years. There is a growing trend by others to make everyone Employees. They use the words “Direct Control”. “You must have Direct Control over that Individual therefore they must be an Employee.”
What happened to;
“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” is a phrase from the United States Declaration of Independence that states three fundamental rights that all humans are endowed with by their Creator
There are no advantages in being an Employee or a Contractor. Both positions have equal merit. One is a conservative approach to working with structure. The other is a more aggressive approach to work with less boundaries. It is a fact that some individuals excel in an Employee Environment while others excel in a Contractor Environment.
Designing Rules and Regulations forcing an Individual to be an Employee is wrong.
There is a war against independent contractors. This war is waged by the labor unions and their “allies” at all levels of government. They claim that IC’s are “exploited labor”, but it’s a lie. All they want is to create more dues paying union members. For the government, they LIKE workers to be “employees”, subject to labor rules and regulations. For employment attorneys, they LIKE getting paid to sue or defend companies that are audited by the IRS or state agencies.
I ran a business which used IC’s to perform field work. On any given day I could not tell you who was working, when they started, when they finished, what they did, how long it took to do it, or where they were. Yet as an “employer” I was supposed to have “control” over these workers, and can be subject to punishing penalties if the workers are determine to be “misclassified”.
Every one of these workers made a decision to BE an independent contractor. They wanted to work for themselves and control their own schedule and income. I never forced anyone to be independent, it was their choice. Many were retirees or single parents who needed maximum flexibility in their workday.
I believe that forcing all workers to be employees is a form of slavery. Every person has the right to offer their labor as they see fit. If a person wishes to enter into an agreement to offer their labor as an employee or IC, they should have that right and not be dictated to by Big Labor.
My suggestion is to have a federally approved legal agreement that governs the classification of workers as IC’s. Any worker who signs the agreement gains the right to work at their own discretion, and forfeits their rights under the Labor Code.
Much was made of the disastrous “AB5” in California which was passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. This immediately caused thousands of people to lose their jobs as companies no longer wanted to continue a business relationship with an IC. Ultimately the bill was amended with hundreds of businesses exempted from the rules.
The federal “PRO Act” is an attempt to outlaw independent contractors nationally and unfortunately Trump’s pick for DOL is a proponent of this terrible idea.