When it comes to employment misclassification, no industry is safe. Employee misclassification occurs when an employer improperly classifies a worker as an independent contractor rather than as an employee. Misclassification can be intentional and unintentional and it generally results in avoidance of employment taxes and other potential liabilities.
While misclassification is prevalent in the construction industry, the issue recently resurfaced in a case involving San Francisco-based Uber Technologies Inc., the increasingly popular transportation network company wherein drivers use their own personal vehicles to transport customers to and from their destinations. Uber drivers and customers use a mobile-phone application that allows drivers to indicate whether they are accepting rides and allows customers to locate drivers and pay their respective fares. Uber has always classified its drivers as independent contractors.
In a recent hearing, the California Labor Commission challenged Uber’s classification of its drivers and reviewed whether Uber drivers were actually employees. Uber looked to the drivers’ exclusive control over their schedules and which ride requests to accept to support their contention the drivers were independent contractors. To Uber’s dismay, the commission ruled Uber drivers were, in fact, employees, entitling them to various benefits, including health insurance, unemployment benefits and workers’ compensation. As a result, Uber also was forced to cover certain business expenses, including toll reimbursements and mileage. Of the labor commissions addressing the Uber issue, the California Labor Commission’s decision directly conflicts with rulings in five other states: Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas. All of these states’ commissions held that Uber drivers were independent contractors.
As employee misclassification gains more visibility, more states are reevaluating how to properly classify workers. The North Carolina General Assembly, for example, is attempting to pass a law that would expressly define the factors that would determine whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor. A few of the factors being considered by the North Carolina Legislature in House Bill 482 include:
- Whether the individual is engaged in an independent business, calling or occupation.
- Whether the individual is paid a fixed price, a lump sum or upon a quantitative basis for the work performed.
- Whether the individual is not subject to discharge because he or she adopts one method of doing the work rather than another.
- Whether the individual is free to hire assistants as he or she may think necessary and whether the individual has full control over such assistants.
- Whether the individual selects his or her own time.
In addition to the much-needed clarification, the bill also proposes a penalty provision, where repeated intentional misclassifications by employers of their employees as independent contractors will trigger a $1,000 per employee liability. The bill would also create a five-member investigatory team and an amnesty period that would provide an opportunity for employers to self-report their current misclassifications. The “temporary amnesty program” will provide misclassifying employers with
immunity from civil penalty and enable to re-classify their workers to their correct designation.
Other states, like Texas, who have already enacted a similar law, are successfully discovering and reclassifying misclassified employees. In 2013, the Texas Labor Commission conducted 6,158 audits—752 of which were in the construction industry. Of the 752 businesses, 37.6 percent were found to have at least one misclassified employee. A total of 3,638 employees—an average of about 16 per business—were misclassified as independent contractors. The construction industry had one of the highest percentages of misclassified employees among all industries.