This article is a must to send to boomer parents who don’t get it (my dad!) but it also helps put in perspective what exactly is lost when employers misclassify their workers and transition workers to contracting status, which is a huge chunk of what’s devastating us at the national/international level; what the article calls a “chop shop” approach to profits. I think scorched earth also applies: devastating the world for profits that won’t give them anything in the real long term.
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/
Not sure if it’s still this way, but an employer I worked for 10 years ago switched us all to contract status and stopped paying any employee taxes. We got 1099s. My taxes that year were the worst I’ve paid in my life.
Yep that’s one of the perks of doing this for employers. Not only do they stop paying an hourly wage and having to worry about benefits and workers comp, they don’t have to cover their part of payroll tax.
It’s 100% a scam to allow them to make more off us with less responsibility toward their workforce:
This is also a very common trick in Europe right now though unions have in some places been able to stop it using strikes or court cases. The fight continues.
Even local government and nonprofits do this in my area. I remember my girlfriend arguing with a DCF case worker that a “self employed” contractor that only works for one organization for $200 a month should still qualify for Medicaid.
Local, national, any kind of governments do this a lot and they do it the most effectively because they can manipulate the coercive welfare system to keep people in place.
Which goes something like:
“We’re gonna fire you, put you on benefits and then place you on your old job without pay as a ‘work experience’ placement that you must do to keep your benefits”
Like, I have seen that trick sooooo many times.
QueerAnarchism 