The traditional big company job model wherein the employer takes on the role of parent, teacher and health provider and the traditional small company job model which typically has a similar role but lacks the health provider portion are in need of a third and co-equally legislated counterpart to enable our economy to flourish in the 21st century. The employee status shifted from being “slave like” in the nineteenth century to that of “prima donna” in the twentieth century with so many entitlements having accrued to the label. I believe that employers both large and small will, absent a great need, be increasingly unwilling to take on new employees.
The problem as I see it is that the act of hiring an “employee” (employee will hereinafter mean a statutory employee with all the rights guaranteed by whatever laws govern) requires an employer to be prepared to furnish care and feeding of the employee for the term of the employment without regard to the productivity of the employee. The employer does have the ability to sever ties with the employee after a time; however the severance can be costly and time-consuming.
I would suggest creating a new legislated category of employment that for want of a better term would be called a “rover”. From a federal tax standpoint, this person would become a 1099 employee – the difference being that the definition would not be limited as it is now in the independent contractor classification. Alternatively, the independent contractor classification could have all the qualifications stripped away allowing any person to register as a rover.
The rover would be:
1. Hired for a period of time, a specific project or on a day-to-day basis. The hiring document would set out the conditions.
2. Paid so much per period (i.e. hour, week, month), for a project, for specific results, or any manner which is agreeable to the parties.
3. Responsible for any and all tax payments, health care, travel expenses.
The company would be:
1. Responsible for payment per the agreement.
2. Work related injury coverage. (In the long term, this should be covered by a universal health care program administered by the Feds.)
Where other technical licensing is required, this classification would not exempt the rover from satisfying those requirements, however states would be prohibited from requiring the rover to be licensed if an employee doing the same or similar job would not be required to be licensed.
There are reports of a “gig” work force emerging as the economy deteriorates and I myself have always been self-employed.
For this to work would require legislation but the passage of a universal single-payer healthcare system run by Medicare would make this very easy to implement. I believe that the resulting increase in worker productivity would be large.
Registration could be as easy as utilizing the current State Corporation Commissions to register individuals under the new category or the existing category of LLC could be used.
Elgut Dlareg
