Misclassification of actually employed workers as independent contractors is one of the many ways that most American workers have suffered declining conditions of labor and of social protection in the past 40 years. Until recently, misclassification was an understudied phenomenon, but recent efforts by workers to gain recognition as employees, by unions seeking to organize them, and by government agencies trying to enforce labor laws and/or enhance tax revenues have brought the issue to the attention of many scholars as well as the general public.
Misclassification is controversial because the distinction between an employee and an independent contractor is unclear under Federal law and the laws of the 50 states. While the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 defined an employee, it did not define an independent contractor. Immediately many employers began reclassifying their employees as independent contractors, and legal disputes arose about whether or not their actions constituted...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bensman D (2009) Port trucking down the low road. Demos, New York
Bensman D (2014) Misclassification: workers on the borderland. J Self-Govern Manage Econ. 11(2):1017–1045
Bensman D, Bromberg Y (2008) Report on the port truckers survey at the New Jersey Ports. Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. New Brunswick, N.J. New York
Kalleberg A (2011) Good jobs, bad jobs. Russell Sage Foundation, New York
National Employment Law Project (2011) NELP summary of independent contractor reforms: new state and federal activity (Nov. 2011). www.nelp.org/content/uploads/2015/03/2011IndependentContractorReformUpdate.pdf
National Employment Law Project (2012) Independent contractor misclassification imposes huge costs on workers and federal and state treasuries (Aug. 2012). www.nelp.3cdn.net/0693974b8e20a9213eg8m6bhyfx.pdf
Rubinstein MN (2012) Employees, employers, and quasi-employers: an analysis of employees and employers who operate in the borderland between an employer-and-employee relationship. Univ Pa J Bus Law. 14(3):605–659
Smith R, Bensman D, Marvy, P (2010) The big rig: poverty, pollution, and the misclassification of truck drivers at America’s ports. National Employment Law Project. New York
Smith R, Marvy P, Zerolnick J (2014) The big rig overhaul: restoring middle-class jobs at America’s ports through labor law enforcement. National Employment Law Project. New York
Stone K, Arthurs H (eds) (2013) Rethinking workplace regulation: beyond the standard contract of employment. Russell Sage, New York
United States Department of Labor, Administrator’s Interpretation No. 2015-1. July 15, 2015
Weil D (2014) The fissured workplace: why work became so bad for so many and what we can do about it. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Zatz N (2011) Beyond misclassification: tackling the independent contractor problem without redefining employment. ABA J Employ Law 26:279–294
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Bensman, D. (2017). Misclassification of Independent Contractors. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2770-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2770-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences