Corporations are taking benefits from workers by calling them "freelancers."

[LaStrega]

This week on PBS' NOW program:

Corporations are taking benefits from workers by calling them "freelancers."

Temporary workers and independent contractors make up nearly a third of the U.S. workforce, and represent a growing asset to companies who rely on freelance flexibility. But corporations are using the designation "freelancer" to avoid paying health care and other benefits, even though many of these workers put in the same hours as their covered counterparts. NOW looks at the effect of this tactic on the lives and personal economy of freelance workers.

Full article: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/407/index.html

[mac2]

1. Freelancers for large companies might not be a good

idea. Their work could be substandard when all is said and done. No training, experience, etc. You get what you pay for applies here.

[Warpy]

2. The hospital refused to hire me on staff because of my

health issues. That "freelance" contract kept them from having to pay any benefits but holiday pay and a pension that wouldn't keep my cat alive.

They were absolutely terrified I'd cost their for profit health plan a few bucks.

Meanwhile, nurses who had it were going bankrupt from the copays as well as paying 60% of the cost of the plan, themselves, while big businesses around town were heavily subsidized and given cheaper rates.

Healthcare is one of the dirtiest industries out there when it comes to worker's rights. It's all about the bottom line, how much money they can squeeze out of each patient and how much extra work they can squeeze out of the few nurses that are left in the profession.

Nurses are the profession likeliest to be uninsured or underinsured. The system likes it that way.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. They're just getting around to this? I saw it in the 80s, and...

from the 90s on almost every job I had was as an "independant contractor." Two of them, I had to set up a corporation to get paid.

The company saves a ton on payroll taxes, pension funding, and other such stuff, while we get workman's comp, and that's about it, if we even get that without paying for it ourselves. No unemployment insurance for contractors, and no wage and hour rules.

[Berry Cool]

5. Yep. It's hardly news.

Another easy way to save bennies is to replace a full-time employee, to whom you are required to offer them, with two part-timers, to whom you are not required to offer benefits. You can pay each part-timer half a salary and offer no bennies at all. Quite the savings, especially if you hire relatively inexperienced part-timers or people so desperate for the job you are offering that they'll take it despite the abysmal pay.

The only thing is, how do you get rid of the full-timer in that position? Well, you either wait for him or her to retire or move on to another job, or if that doesn't happen soon enough and it starts to look like they're settling in, you lay 'em off, or trump up some sort of cause for firing 'em.

This is especially good in positions that tend to be occupied by women, because you can always find a couple of women out there who, for one reason or another, would actually prefer a part-time rather than a full-time job (often because they have young children) and who don't need the bennies because they're covered by hubby's plan.

As for the majority of men, and the single women, who can't afford to take less than full-time work with full bennies, it just gets harder for them to find something, as the pool of available full-time jobs in their field gets slowly whittled away.

[Adsos Letter]

4. I've seen this more and more in the trades...

employers (painting companies, in this instance) insisting their higher-cost employees become independant contractors in order to avoid costs; the employee ends up having to make all the employer contributions, such as workman's comp, personal liability insurance, etc., while the duties and responsibilities remain the same.

[Berry Cool]

6. Another variation is when companies lay off full-time staff

only to hire them right back on as contractors. Kodak is notorious for this. I think there was a joke going around Rochester at one time that "once, everyone used to know someone who worked at Kodak; now, everyone knows someone who's a consultant for Kodak."

[TreasonousBastard]

7. The more civilized way of doing it is by...

offering buyouts to older employess-- you reduce the age of the staff and thereby reduce the payroll and benefit cost. I remember labor cost reductions up to 40% that way.

But, when one company I worked for bought out a very useful employee, instead of him wandering into my office to discuss stuff, I had to hire him at a minimum of $400 a day, plus expenses. Since his salary used to be distributed over 15 offices, this put a huge hit on my numbers when I had to apply those bil;ls to particular accounts that were already price pressured.

The company didn't actually reduce costs with him, just squeezed me and other managers making us accountable for them.

You realize, of course, that there are large consulting firms working with management to explain just how to do this. While I liked my job and miss the money and perks, I don't miss the habit of looking over my back for what fresh hell they'll come up with.

[mac2]

8. And they wonder why a large number of Americans are on

Prozac and have Diabetes II? It's pressure/stress and the unknown our leaders have created for us in the last twenty years.

President Bush with his "disasters" and threats didn't help. I'm betting many of the old died of heart break after 911.