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the gargoyles.....no......they couldn't be

@tiddytrashcan

lids | 25 | she/her | white | bi • i luv all my friends so gotdam much • icon is by marinadrawsthings!!!
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Ok, but if you’re an independent contractor in the US and this happens? Find a lawyer, because you might have just gotten a huge payday.

Your position was just referred to as employment. Independent contractors do not have employers; they do not have employment. Congrats, your contact at this company just provided evidence that you were illegally missclassified.

This contact is claiming that you have set hours you’re obligated to fulfill. Unless a work task can only be done at a set time for practical reasons (i.e. you’re an audio freelancer paid to support a live event that occurs at a particular time and requires a certain amount of pre-show setup), a company cannot set an independent contractor’s work hours. This is further evidence that you were missclassified.

The whole exchange establishes that the company is interpreting an employer-employee relationship rather than expecting a service. Discipline and potential for firing (you cannot fire an independent contractor; no longer purchasing their service is not equivalent) establish that this person views themselves as a manager. Independent contractors cannot have managers.

This one text exchange could:

  • Get you back pay for the full duration you’ve worked there, to bring you up to the compensation that an employee would have gotten
  • Get you back compensation for lost benefits that an employee would have gotten
  • Get you back pay for the additional self-employment taxes the company should have covered
  • Get the company to pay back taxes to the government
  • Get the company to hire everyone who performed a similar role, or face further penalties and fines
  • A win would encourage the rest of their missclassified workers to sue for the same, or give them leverage to demand a better deal

If the company is going to screw you over like that, may as well make them pay for it.

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Since this is getting a lot of reblogs, here’s a federal source that can help you determine if you’re illegally classified as a contractor:

You can also file a form with the IRS to force the company to correct your classification (assuming you meet the criteria), without necessarily having to sue:

Keep in mind that this is just federal. Most states also prohibit missclassification as an independent contractor; and even if states have more lenient rules, companies still have to comply with this federal law. The rules have largely been bipartisan and existed for decades, so they’re common.

States also have an interest in having regulations about missclassification: it’s a significant loss of tax revenue. Your self employment tax does not fully equal what a company would have paid for you in payroll taxes.

A lawyer can help point you in the right direction if a company is currently missclassifying you.

Fantastic addition

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Let me tell you, there's a queer club night in the UK called Gal Pals that caters exclusively to queer women and NBs and only plays music by women and when It's Raining Men came on last time you'd have thought the crowd was full of middle aged housewives. A banger is a banger is a banger, you just gotta let the music go innit

Saturn

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope took its first near-infrared look at Saturn on June 25. The planet appears dark at this wavelength, as methane gas in its atmosphere absorbs sunlight — but its icy rings stay bright!

Of course Saturn brought its ring light 🪐

so. i rewatched everything everywhere all at once a few nights ago. and upon my rewatch i was struck by the scene where evelyn embraces nihilism across the multiverse—signing the divorce papers, revealing racaccoonie, turning away deirdre, breaking the window in the laundromat, though im not sure it was in that order—and how it shows that choosing to believe that nothing truly matters actively ruins your life and the lives around you. like, okay, whatever, nothing has any meaning and in the grand scheme of the universe, the consequences of your actions are never going to ripple out and affect the cosmos in a way that truly matters. but your choices don't have to have that kind of massive effect for them to matter at all. does the universe care that evelyn did all those things? not particularly. but look at waymond's face when she signs those papers. the way chad cried when she separated him from racaccoonie. deirde's reaction to the rejection of such a sincere display of affection. that's what matters. it's only when evelyn decides to go back and show that she cares about other people, by helping them or just being kind to them, that anyone's lives can be improved.