A recurring theme in this blog has been that when trying to determine Who Is My Employee?, there are different tests under different laws. Different tests can yield different results.

A recent court decision from Pennsylvania emphasizes this point. In the Keystone State (proud home of Dunder Mifflin and Hershey Park), contruction workers are considered employees for workers compensation purposes unless they (i) have a written contract, (ii) have a place of business separate from their general contractor’s site, and (iii) have liability insurance of at least $50,000. This strict test is courtesy of the Construction Workplace Misclassification Act (CWMA), an Act whose name shows a disappointing lack of creativity.

I might have gone with “Construction Occupation Workers’ Act Regarding Designations In Classifying Employees” (COWARDICE) or “Law About Misclassifying Employees” (LAME) or, if I was hungry for shellfish, then maybe “Construction Law About Misclassification for Builders And Keeping Employees Safe” (CLAMBAKES).

Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, that whack-a-doodle misclassification test for construction workers. As my loyal readers know, that’s not even close to the tests used for determining Employee vs. Independent Contractor under most other laws. Other more common tests, like Right to Control Tests or Economic Realities Tests, rely on entirely different factors and weigh them, rather than requiring three specific factors to be met.

The court noted that the CWMA test was very different from the common law test and that the result under one test was not necessarily going to lead to the same result under the other test.

So remember, the task of deciding whether a worker is misclassified is hard and no fun. The task of writing names for laws, however, should be embraced with joy and creativity.

© 2017 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.