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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

The "independent contractor" thing has always been a fairly transparent ploy at not calling workers "workers". The ruling sounds fairly logical. This is presumably the primary source [0] from a reliable location.

Although not reliable enough to get the title character encoding right.

[0] https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/nsw/NSWI...

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This is not even limited to low-wage workers. A lot of GPs are "contractors" even though they work only for one employer with a provided office and set hours. The tax office has noticed in the last few years and indicated they're not happy.

Can you please link me to the source for this? I'm a GP and I've always found this a bit strange.

Sorry, i don't have a link. This info was given to us from mediqfinancial.com.au people (if I remember correctly)

Might be referring to the ATO withdrawing it's previous advice that GP's didn't fall within the extended definition of employee, for the purposes of the Super Gurantee Act.

Good write up of various contractor cases over the last year, here:

https://hallandwilcox.com.au/thinking/virdis-and-moffet/

"The cases also mark the ATO departure from its long-standing position regarding fee splitting arrangements in the medical field in ATO ID 2011/87, which was withdrawn on 23 August 2021 based on the decision in Moffet. Importantly, ATO ID 2011/87 reflected the ATO’s position for almost 10 years, and has been relied on by many businesses"

> A lot of GPs are "contractors" even though they work only for one employer with a provided office and set hours.

Isnt that how many software developers on contract work who have 1 year contracts which are usually renewed.

Here is the most official source, from the government website, and without any character encoding issues: https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/17f0ac9ebc84a010c6fc...

Thanks.

The decision was made by a single commissioner - I'm not sure on process of this case but typically in the Industrial Relations Commission you can appeal to a full bench (perhaps also to a higher court). I think we'd all expect Amazon to do so.

Can Amazon appeal this? They were not a party to the case. And the parties reached a "consent position" (essentially a negotiated settlement), and the commissioner's decision was just over whether to approve or reject it.

There are more obvious benefits to making delivery drivers independent contractors. Namely, incentives. The more you deliver, the more you earn. If they are salaried, the system is likely to get bogged down.

Farmers have been paying seasonal farmhands by "piece rates" for centuries. It's quite popular for a huge number of newer industries like auto shops. The downside from the perspective of tech companies is that piece rate workers still have the rights and privileges of regular workers. Circumventing those rights and obligations is the actual reason for the "independent contractor" framework.

Employees can have performance bonuses as well. There's nothing stopping the incentives.

The stakes are lower with optional performance bonuses.

Oh no, Amazon gets only a carrot, not a carrot and a stick? How terrible. /s

Sales people earn a lot trough comissions and are usually regular employees. Amazon could easily pay some extra money for each delivered package.

Paying someone minimum wage is the employer saying "I would pay you less but the stupid government won't allow it"

Treating someone in this position as an "independent contractor" is clearly an attempt to circumvent wage and other labour laws.

(And no, obviously this isn't the case for highly paid IT contractors with several customers )

I'm glad my government stopped that bullshit over a decade ago.

Hard disagree. My dad was a UPS driver for 30 years. He's the hardest worker I've ever known, often times during the Holidays leaving at 6am not to return until 9pm. They are unionized and payed well, as opposed to FedEx which are contractors. He was incentivized to work hard because he made a good salary and he saw how it benefitted his family to put in his all. Work hard, get treated with respect as a valued employee with a good wage and benefits, earn a good living for you and your family. What more incentive do you need? Why does being an independent contractor incentivize you above this level?

Edit: I conflated employee with salaried. I believe he was hourly because he got overtime, but he was still an employee.

because IC's almost always get paid more to work more - I was an IC for 90% of my life and loved it, when I worked more than 40 hours, I got paid for more than 40 hours.

Now I work for mega corp, I get paid the same wether I work 40 hours or 80 hours - and have been averaging 55-65 for months now. Like my job, so not complaining, but overall I preferred the control and extra pay being an IC gave me.

No everyone wants to be an IC, but for those that do, the option should exist - nobody forces you to be an employee or an IC - especially in this market. Let people decide for themselves.

I think there's a general conflation of independent contractor versus salaried employee going on in the discussion here. I did it too. You can be an employee and earn wages that correlate to how much you work, and you get overtime for working past 40 hours. So the choice isn't IC versus salaried, it's IC vs. salaried employee vs. waged employee.

As to delivering packages, in general the way this works is that as a UPS driver you have a delivery area. You show up at the depot in the morning and they load your truck full of packages, then you go and deliver all of them. Maybe it's different for the little Amazon vans, but for the big UPS trucks they don't go back for more. They are loaded to the brim for the day, and the driver delivers all of those packages to return only in the evening when they are done. They do this because their delivery area may be 20 or more miles from the depot; it doesn't make sense to do a 40 mile round trip each day more than once.

So where is the opportunity to deliver more packages as an IC? And where is the evidence that a company like UPS is bogged down by having unionized employees, whereas FedEx is not having ICs?

> nobody forces you to be an employee or an IC - especially in this market. Let people decide for themselves.

Do you disagree that employers sometimes abuse their employees by mislabeling them as one or the other? The whole point of the IC vs. Employee distinction is that it's based on what you do and who controls it. It's my understanding that the line between IC and employee can very easily be crossed, leading to a situation where the company has an employee for less than what they should be paying them if they were following the law. Why can't the government enforce the law in situations like these?

>>Do you disagree that employers sometimes abuse their employees by mislabeling them as one or the other?

No, but I for one am very opposed to the drive by some (not you) to do everything they can to make it next to impossible for companies to use IC's (many have stopped for fear of them being reclassified down the road) - there are plenty of people that want to operate as IC's and there are others that would prefer the 'security' of being an employee (in quotes, because imo, being an IC is often more secure than being an employee because one often has multiple customers and is constantly needing to 'sell' their services).

I have no problem with people that would prefer to be an employee, not any problem with people who prefer to operate as an IC - I have done both, and would prefer both options continues to exist; people should be able to decide which model they prefer.

In my field - I used to be able to IC with almost any company large or small - then big companies got spooked and they will hire you as a 'contractor', but you need to do it thru an agency who more often than not will only allow you to work as an employee on a W2 (USA) - which take huge cuts of the gross that the 'real' customer is paying - sometimes 25-50% of the actual amount billed. What was supposed to 'help' the little guy, ends up screwing them, at least some of them.

Is "system is likely to get bogged down" a euphemism for "Amazon is likely to make slightly less absurd profits"?

Much longer delivery times, angry customers, prime cancellations, tainting the brand, losing market share...

Amazon's retail business has very thin margins. It's not running at AWS margins.

My understanding is that "thin margins" has more to do with the way earnings are reported than anything else[1]

But anyway, if the answer to workers who don't earn enough is always "switch jobs/work harder/work more" why is the answer to companies who don't earn enough never "switch industries/remodel your business"?

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevendennis/2022/02/07/what-we...

People underestimate how much of this is from gig companies not wanting to actually manage gig workers. In standard employment, you’re paid for every hour on the clock. Somebody needs to schedule the workers, track who is working, who’s out sick, who’s out for protected leave, deal with conflicts between employees, train managers, etc.

It is much easier to pay for results on a per delivery basis. Did you deliver the package? If yes, you’re paid $x. If your metrics look bad, they don’t renew your contract.

The rules protecting people from being exploited as independant contractors should have an upper limit on pay. If your paying someone 200K to be an independant contractor they shouldnt be able to dispute it.

I think they should, but then the 200k should be treated like total compensation pre-tax and everything.

As someone who wants to be an independant contractor who has to deal with all this crap I disagree.

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