Tag Archives: Tips

09.05.17
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When to Embrace Joint Employment, and When to Run Like Hell (Pink Floyd, 1979)

Joint employment risks dangers choices joint employer IMG_1101Life is full of serious questions. For example, Should I stay or should I go? (The Clash, 1982). Or, Will you love me forever? (practically every song ever, but for now, we’ll go with Meatloaf in Paradise by the Dashboard Lights, 1977).

When engaging non-employee workers, businesses must also confront a serious question: Embrace joint employment, or try to avoid it? (Frank Zappa confronted a different kind of serious question in Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?, 1979, but that’s beyond the scope of this blog.)

Many of my posts have been geared toward strategies for trying to avoid joint employment. There is another way, though. Sometimes, it may be better to embrace joint employment. But know the pros and cons.

Here are some things to consider: Continue reading →

08.31.17
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Tip of the Day: Set Up a Gatekeeper

door-gate-entrance-gateway

What you don’t know can hurt you.

Claims of independent contractor misclassification can sneak up on companies that don’t even know they have a problem.

Businesses usually treat the retention of contractors as an expenditure, not an increase in headcount. Since no new employees are being hired, Human Resources Departments and Legal Departments often have no idea when operations managers have retained contractors–sometimes at distant locations.

Continue reading →

08.28.17
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Tip for Master Services Agreements: Protect Your Business Opportunities

Master servbice agreement protect business opportunities non-circumvention clause staffing agency agreement IMG_1095If you google “Quotes about Opportunity,” you’ll find 1273 quotes on Goodreads.com. Everyone’s interested in opportunities. But when it comes to business relationships, don’t let others take yours.

When servicing a customer, businesses often call upon use subcontractors for help. That can be a win-win, so long as the subcontractor does not try to poach the relationship once that deal is done.

Consider protecting the opportunities you present to subcontractors with a non-circumvention clause. The concept here is that when your business has introduced a subcontractor to a customer to work on a project, the subcontractor should not be Continue reading →

08.24.17
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Consultants Can Take Steps to Avoid Joint Employer Liability

Joint employer ;liability management companiy consultant IMG_1097Companies in distress sometimes retain management consultants to try to turn them around. Sometimes the plan works, sometimes not. When the turnaround effort fails and the company shuts down, can the management company be held liable as a joint employer?

This issue arose recently in a WARN Act case. The federal WARN Act requires an employer, before ordering a plant shutdown or mass layoff, to provide 60 days’ notice and pay to its employees.

Here’s what happened. A nursing home with multiple Medicare and Medicaid violations retained a consulting firm to try to solve its many problems. The consulting firm Continue reading →

08.07.17
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Stop the Leaks! What if White House Staffers Were Independent Contractors?

Sessions stop the leaks independent contractorsTrump and Sessions wants to prosecute the leakers. As we’ve seen before, stopping leaks can become a Presidential obsession. In Nixon’s White House, the Plumbers were tasked with stopping leaks of classified information, such as the Pentagon Papers. Through the Committee to Re-Elect the President (fittingly, CREEP), members of the Plumbers broke into the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who had released the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. Some of you may have heard about what happened next.

Presidential aides and White House staffers routinely have access to information that is intended to remain confidential. Businesses face the same issue. A company’s employees often have access to confidential or trade secret information that would be harmful in the hands of competitors, or that could damage the business if released to the general public.

It’s commonplace to require employees in such positions to sign Nondisclosure Continue reading →

07.03.17
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Avoid These FMLA Traps with Joint Employment

nurse - FMLA leave and joint employment-359321_1920The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is already one of the hardest employment laws to comply with. Add joint employment into the mix, and the level of difficulty further increases.

Here are some pointers for handling FMLA issues when joint employment is likely to exist:

Issue 1: Is there Joint Employment?

To determine whether two companies are joint employers under the FMLA, the Economic Realities Test is used. This is the same test used under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). (See this post for a recent development that threatens to expand the definition of joint employment under the FLSA.)

The DOL has advised that in most staffing agency relationships, there is joint employment.

Issue 2: How Does Joint Employment Affect An Employee’s FMLA Eligibility?

Continue reading →

06.12.17
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Joint Employment Is Like Taking Steroids By Accident

athlete-joint employment - staffing agency - 1840437_1920It seems like every month another professional athlete is caught using a prohibited substance. The typical script (after getting caught) is to blame the maker of a supplement. “I should have more carefully checked the label,” or “I had no way of knowing what was in that synthetic elephant urine.”

Fair or unfair, every athlete knows that he/she is responsible for what goes into the athlete’s body, whether the juicing was intentional or not.

The same rule applies to companies who use staffing agencies.

Continue reading →

05.18.17
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Never Been Sued? Congratulations! Here’s Why You Should Re-Evaluate Your Use of Independent Contractors Now.

IMG_1072Have you ever heard someone say, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result“? That’s just wrong. No, it’s insanely wrong. (Irony! Actual definition, click here).

  • If you flip a coin 5 times and it comes up heads each time, is it insane to think it might come up tails next time?
  • If you play golf in a lightning storm five times and never get hit, is it insane to think you might get a nice electrical jolt next time?
  • If you root for the Browns to win a football game and they never do, is it insane to think they never will? [Note to self: Delete that. Bad example. It is true that they might never win a game. Shameful admission: I am a Browns fan.]

My consistent advice to companies that use independent contractors is to be proactive. Review your policies, practices, and documents now — before you get sued or audited. Many take this advice. Those who do not generally give two reasons:

  1. We don’t want to spend the money now; and
  2. We’ve always done it this way and have never been sued.

Folks, that kind of thinking is: n. extreme foolishness; folly; senselessness; foolhardiness.

Here are a few quick facts:

  1. Every company that has been sued for independent contractor misclassification had never been sued before the first time it was sued.
  2. Every company that has been audited for independent contractor misclassification had never been audited before the first time it was audited.

Continue reading →

05.11.17
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Can an Intern be an Independent Contractor? (Answers revealed in James Bond movies)

IMG_1068Among James Bond films, Rotten Tomatoes ranks Never Say Never Again 18th out of 26, with a mediocre 63% rating. (Bond movie quiz at the end of this post, for patient readers.)

It’s a cliche saying, I know, but my first reaction when asked this question was, “I’d never say never, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario where that would work.” (That was also my second reaction and my third. Let’s just say that’s my reaction.)

Let’s run this through the gauntlet. Remember, it’s not your choice whether an intern is an independent contractor or an employee. The law decides that for you, based on the nature of the relationship.

Test #1: Economic Realities Test. Under federal wage and hour laws, an independent Continue reading →

05.08.17
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Today’s Tip: Avoid Telling Contractors How to Perform the Work (with Stones lyrics)

IMG_1066The great scholar Mick Jagger reminds his followers that you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes well you might find you get what you need. This is good advice, not just for Mr. Jimmy (who did look pretty ill), but also for companies who use independent contractors.

In a true independent contractor relationship, the hiring entity knows what it needs. It needs results, but the details about how, when, and where to work toward those results are left to the contractor’s discretion. There is no oversight or supervision.

The more direction a company provides a contractor on how to perform the work, the more likely the contractor is misclassified and the relationship will be deemed employment. You might want to control these things, but if they are not necessary to get what you need, then you should try sometimes and you might find you can get what you need without exerting extra control over the contractor. Continue reading →