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Comment by rrrrrrrrrrrryan | Hacker News Reader

There obviously needs to be a new class of workers. I've seen the phrase "Dependent Contractor" tossed around here on HN and I think it'd do quite well.

If you work for an employer who sets your hours, pay, etc., you'd still be designated as an employee.

If you sell your labor to multiple entities, and/or you set your own pay rate, you're an independent contractor.

If you do not set your pay rate, you'd be a "dependent contractor", and entitled to at least some basic worker protections, but not necessarily things like mandatory paid 15-minute breaks. Those should continue to be required for employees whose hours are set by the company for them, but it feels silly to regulate a thing like this when an Uber driver is completely free to just turn the app off if they need a break.

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A "dependent contractor" is literally what an employee is, except that in your scenario it would just be an employee without the decades of hard-fought labor protections like bathroom breaks.

No, a "dependent contractor" is completely different from a regular employee. As an employee you are generally required to work certain hours, or at the very least do a certain amount of work in a week, and are paid either hourly or salaried. A dependent contractor, in this example, can set their own hours, start or stop working whenever they want, and gets paid per job rather than per hour or month.

Today I learned from the internet that I have been wrong about the advice I have been providing clients for the past decade... /s

Employees have contracts, too.

Everything you have described as supposed features of dependent contractors are features of independent contractors. Indeed, that last point is one of the biggest historical factors (in the US, and most of Europe) for determining whether a worker is an employee or a contractor. Historically what made a worker an independent contractor instead of an employee was that a worker was economically independent from an employer for their livelihood because they had other clients paying them for the same work. The work independence factors are an outgrowth of that analysis.

As to your other points:

Many employees can set their own hours. Most white collar employees can (and now do, as a result of COVID). It is hourly workers that can't chose when they work, because they are paid on the basis of time work rather than labor performed. Generally, whether a contractor can set their own hours is determined by the contract.

I'm not aware of any contractors that can simply start and stop working during a contracted job without violating their contract, so in that respect your point isn't valid for any worker, employee or otherwise.

Current classifications are irrelevant because the parent was laying out a new system, in which you could either be an employee, an independent contractor, or a dependent contractor. Under that proposed system, there is a significant difference between a dependent contractor and an employee, because the dependent contractor can choose to stop working whenever they want, and can work for multiple companies, while an employee could not do that.

And regardless, I don't know of any hourly employees who can choose to stop working for several weeks without notice, and then start working again whenever they want. That is a major difference between something like Uber, and a normal hourly job. Also hourly people are paid by the hour, while with Uber you are paid by the job.

A dependent contractor is an employee (if they are an individual). This has been the actual state of the law for decades in the US and EU. Redefining existing terms doesn't change that, and the parent's comment doesn't create a meaningful distinction between the existing classifications.

Worse, it creates distinctions that are based on factors that are largely irrelevant to the employee-contractor classification.

Today, employees are free to choose to stop working whenever they want (the US has at-will employment) and can work for multiple companies (indeed, most American workers work for multiple companies, especially those who work multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet).

I don't know of any contractor that can choose to stop working for several weeks without notice during a contract and get rehired by the client they walked out on. They'd have to find a new client. This is no different from an employee getting terminated for not showing up for several weeks.

And with respect to getting paid by the job: while this is one of the big factors for independent contractors, it is not exclusive to them. Employees in the entertainment industry get paid per job (game programmers get paid per game, members of the Hollywood guilds and unions get paid per project, union musicians get paid per recording or tour, etc.)

How would you compare a "dependent contractor" to a restaurant worker who is largely paid in tips, and where management changes their working schedule frequently and erratically?

The dependent contractor can stop working without facing reprocussions, the restaurant worker has to work the shifts that they are scheduled or they will get fired.

Also the restaurant worker is guaranteed minimum wage, while the dependent contractor is not, since they are not paid hourly.

I disagree. Every Uber driver, also drives for Lyft and some format of gig on-demand services (like Postmates, Uber eats) during the same hours. If there is a ride from Uber they pick up that ride, if not they switch to Lyft and pick up their rides. I'm yet to see an employer who will be okay with their employee doing it.

If a grocery store cashier could punch out an hour into their shift, take a day off on a whim, or switch between 3 different grocery stores depending on which is paying better, I'd be inclined to agree with you, but you have to admit that gig work is quite different than traditional employer-employee relationships (which is why they're classified as independent contractors in most of the U.S.). They're not paid a salary or hourly; they're paid per gig, and they're under no obligation to accept any gig.

True, they're not nearly as empowered as a traditional independent contractor like a plumber who can set his own prices, but they're not as powerless as a traditional employee who has no control over their hours either. They're something in between, and their work should be regulated as such.

Uber drivers can't take bathroom breaks?

Or they can just be employees because that's what they are...

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