Workers across various industries are divided on what approach the government should take when it comes to determining who should be an independent contractor or an employee under federal labor law, a gap that complicates the Biden administration’s efforts to combat worker misclassification.
Democrats, labor unions, and other worker-focused groups argue that large tech companies, as well as employers in other industries like health care and janitorial services, are misclassifying their workers as independent contractors to avoid the minimum wage, overtime pay, and tax liabilities that come with full employee status.
But some workers—namely translators, freelance journalists, truckers, among others—say they’re concerned the White House will narrow the definition of independent contractor to a degree that they won’t be able maintain their current livelihoods, and feel they are being left out of a discussion that’s largely focused on the gig economy.
The two factions present a tricky dichotomy for the Biden administration: how do you maintain independent contractor relationships for workers who enjoy that freedom, while also ensuring workers aren’t being exploited under that model?
The most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that independent contractors made up 6.9% of employment in 2017. A quarter of independent contractors in the US worked in “...
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