Posts tagged liability
OP-ED: Labor Department’s new independent contractor rule is a mess. We need a clear national standard instead.
February 2, 2024 // This confusion has serious consequences. Worker classification affects not only minimum wages and overtime, but also fringe benefits, taxes, insurance, liability for injuries, and union organizing. It can even implicate antitrust law. So if a business classifies a worker incorrectly, it can face serious legal penalties. And those penalties aren’t just monetary: some states have even made misclassification a crime. And make no mistake, this isn’t only a problem for companies; it’s a problem for workers too. Look no further than what has happened in California. In 2020, the state changed its classification rules to crack down on supposed misclassification. The state’s goal was to shift workers out of independent contracting and into employment. But not only did contracting dry up, so did employment. A new study shows that more than ten percent of contractors and four percent of employees in the affected professions simply lost their jobs. Businesses were so afraid of the new classification rules that they cut opportunities across the board.
Opinion: Solving Gig Worker Problem will Open Up the Future of Work
December 21, 2022 // The costs and legal liability associated with classifying gig workers as employees would cripple the gig economy and cancel out all the productivity gains experienced over the last decade since the “gig economy” was first coined. This problem has puzzled policy wonks, judges, and legislators alike. The issue comes down to a simple, but loaded question: are gig workers employees or independent contractors? If gig workers were employees, platforms would be subject to legal and financial liability that would necessitate reducing worker flexibility. It would also be limited in the number of platforms they could work for at any given time. If gig workers were considered independent contractors, it removes this liability and maintains flexibility.