unlawful termination, workman's comp, and the investigators that find them fraudulent. ~~~ gist I think that's the bigger point. The companies don't do anything wrong. They pay the employees they are supposed to pay. The fact that the individuals did not get paid does not mean the companies are in the wrong. There are several stories about individual contractors being hired and not paid in the NYT weekly, etc. If you have no clue the law in this area then you are in the same position as the company in question. The fact that some companies in this area haven't been doing a great job in paying people for years does not mean they should be punished by the law. It seems to me they were doing their due diligence on behalf of the contractor because they were in a position to know who was good and who was not. ~~~ mnm1 This is not what I'm getting at at all. This isn't a question of getting paid. This is a question of knowing right from wrong. And the companies are, in fact, wrong. They don't pay. They say they pay but then the contractors don't get paid. ~~~ gist Which companies do pay? ~~~ mnm1 So the question is still the same as before, "Where are all these companies that have been caught not paying contractors?" You're not addressing that and so it just sounds like you're arguing against the existence of such companies. ------ anonsubmit2671 Sounds like a prime candidate for the courts or FTC taking action against the contractors. But is the business model for this in question? These contractors are usually in competition with each other. If I go to a job and find a business name that has a high price/hr rate on one task, I could always search for a competitor who isn't in as high demand and have them perform the task for less money per hour. The business model for these subcontracting companies is often to keep the subcontracting fees down, and the contractors are usually paid off the top by the company that hired them. The business of such companies may change if the customers find it advantageous to increase the subcontracting fees and instead pay the contractor to do the work. ~~~ rconti This is a great point. I have been saying for years that the 'gig economy' model is unsustainable, but no one would ever listen to me. It's unsustainable because the companies never own the workers. I believe Amazon is one of the only companies that successfully owns the entire supply chain of their business, and that's how they were able to get where they are now. I think if you have a workforce that constantly needs new work, and you only pay them a percentage of your sales, you will always be a step ahead. ~~~ Balgair "It's unsustainable because the companies never own the workers" Well, why is that? In capitalism, what is the nature of the ownership? That you as an individual are only allowed to own 'x' amount of dollars? The value of those dollars are, at their core, only allowed to be the work you produce. A simple example: you make a widget for a business. They buy it. If they should buy 100, you only get a percentage of each. If the owners don't buy 100, you don't get paid. So, yes, there is a risk that the owner won't buy the widget, but this is the risk of any business. The owner can just as easily decline to sell you as any random American. They simply refuse to pay you. That said, you _do_ get the power to 'choose' what you do, but the idea of a 'right to your labour' is a bit of a stretch. I could just as easily imagine if you were to 'rent' out your leg as a taxi driver for a dollar to the next available driver. Are you now then entitled to your leg? I think you have a good idea, but I think you need to back up just a bit and say that you just _hate_ that the gig economy model isn't working for you. You wish for something different and different in a sense that you want 'ownership' of your own body (the capital). I'll be honest, I don't think there is such a thing. Your _choice_ is of the market. ~~~ kansface I think one of the fundamental problems is that "owning" your own body is a right - the same way that owning property is - and this is incompatible with a market system. What we have right now is the market for labor. ~~~ Balgair Oh, I am no anarchist. I think that people should have the right to form things and to make laws. I just think that people should realize that 'guild' relationships in capitalism are not sustainable and that all individuals have the right to decide how they will partake in a market. The nature of the work is simply the thing that people sell. It is just work. No right to the work or any particular person's right to that work. ------ s73ver_ This is a good thing. You don't get to call yourself a "gig economy" if you end up doing it when you're losing money, and if you're going to screw over your workers, you deserve to be called out for it. ~~~ gkoberger I know it's popular to hate on Silicon Valley, but this (exactly) happened with Uber. They were called "the world's first trillion dollar company" when they were picking up billions of dollars from drivers. But then they fired 10,000 of their drivers. A third of their drivers. And now they're worth $18 billion. ------ H8crilA Not a very clever idea. The obvious consequence is your competitors will start hiring contractors too (and the moment they start doing so, you can stop). If you want some work done, you can just pay someone at your own expense (at a cost that is lower than the service you are paying for). The actual costs of this model are not very attractive. You have high turn- over, no benefits, lower hourly costs than regular full-time work. No wonder employers don't bother with this. ~~~ rconti I am not very familiar with this business model, but isn't the other, much larger point, that the business exists for less than half the normal rate? Because of the business model, which includes paying the contractor as a percentage of their revenue rather than a set price. The business model has a significant effect on the total cost, so the end price is quite different than a fully-billed hourly rate for the same service. ~~~ phil21 This is a false premise - you just don't have a good grasp of how contractors are paid. In order to avoid pay-per-task contracts, contractors typically set their own hours. So their hourly rate is simply their per-task rate times the amount of hours they worked. You could say "well sure they could avoid pay per-task" but you also would have a huge labor pool available to you if you were unprofitable - so this "benefit" is a negative one. For contractors to turn down your project is easy. If you try to hire someone's time, for most people it comes down to dollars/hour - if the hourly rate that they accept is less than the cost of what you'd be paying them for the job, then they won't do it. You may not understand business/economics but this is just a fact of life. ------ dpc59 At least Uber is paying their drivers. The contractors and subcontractors in this case are being cheated, and they won't get paid. They'll never recover the money. These subcontractors are also losing out in the end, as they're not getting the kind of work that will grow their business. This has the potential to create a long-term negative effect for this industry. People will not hire subcontractors if they think they're going to be cheated. This move has also shown how some workers were essentially being taken advantage of. ~~~ tptacek Nobody is being cheated. In every case I'm aware of, the contractors were providing _precise_ services to clients. In the particular context of a software development environment, this often means "I'm going to spend time working on this project, and I'll provide my own tools and services". But contractors can still lose money, as long as they