I've owned a small pet sitting business in Concord NH for 12 years. As the business has grown over the years we've continually added independent contractors to actually provide the care that we offer.
Recently, a woman that contracted for us a year ago, has filed unemployment and the state is now suggesting that my contractors are actually employees and not independent contractors. The people at the auditing office have an obtuse guideline that they use to determine subcontracting status. After carefully reviewing the abc's as they are called, it seems that anyone could be considered independent as well as an employee. There is so much grey area in the way the abc's are written.
It seems to me that the contracting laws or guidelines certainly weren't written with pet sitters in mind. Ultimately isn't the determinate of whether someone is a contractor or an employee based in the control others have over the performance and completion of the services offered. Is that true?
If so, pet sitting companies have little or no control over their independent contractors. In general, we provide a list of homes that the contractors need to visit and a general time limit in which those homes need to be visited. Whether the contractor actually shows up at those homes and does what is asked of them by the individual home/pet owner is entirely up to them and something no pet sitting company has any control over. Furthermore the list we give many times is modified by the contractor creating an order that suits them with breaks taken of their own accord with no permission asked or granted by the company itself. The companies are billed by the contractor on a weekly basis for the work completed and time is never kept by the company, it's entirely kept by the contractor. They pay for their own gas and car upkeep required to perform the services and pass most of those costs on to the company.
There is no set schedule and no real "hiring" or "firing". Work is always available and it's entirely up to the contractor whether they wish to take advantage of it or not.
We do provide a general initial orientation to show what pet sitting consists of.
Some other important things to note. There is no set schedule. There is no record keeping by the company of how much time is spent actually contracting for the clients. Each client has the option to refuse service of a particular contractor. Most contractors learn things about the client that the company never knows. Obviously the environment that one enters with pets is ever changing, in terms of feeding schedules, walking schedules, medications etc. Most of the time these things are noted by the client to whichever contractor is showing up and the company itself won't have any knowledge of the information that is presented to the contractor.
The nature of the job is independent. The contractors provide their own means to provide service namely a car and they have absolutely no supervision what so ever when they provide that service. Anyone providing pet care and obtaining the "jobs" through a company could go out and provide this care on their own without the company. There is no licensing or schooling necessary. I point this out because the typical employee can't leave their job and suddenly do what it was they were doing on their own. If you operate a cash register, you can't quit and go run a cash register on the side of a road. You'd need to open a business that needed a cash register to run. This isn't the case with pet sitters. All one needs to find as a pet sitter, is a pet owner.
I'm wondering if you can give me a better idea what the legal definition of being an independent contractor is and if pet sitting for a company as an independent contractor is more employee like or more contractor like?
Recently, a woman that contracted for us a year ago, has filed unemployment and the state is now suggesting that my contractors are actually employees and not independent contractors. The people at the auditing office have an obtuse guideline that they use to determine subcontracting status. After carefully reviewing the abc's as they are called, it seems that anyone could be considered independent as well as an employee. There is so much grey area in the way the abc's are written.
It seems to me that the contracting laws or guidelines certainly weren't written with pet sitters in mind. Ultimately isn't the determinate of whether someone is a contractor or an employee based in the control others have over the performance and completion of the services offered. Is that true?
If so, pet sitting companies have little or no control over their independent contractors. In general, we provide a list of homes that the contractors need to visit and a general time limit in which those homes need to be visited. Whether the contractor actually shows up at those homes and does what is asked of them by the individual home/pet owner is entirely up to them and something no pet sitting company has any control over. Furthermore the list we give many times is modified by the contractor creating an order that suits them with breaks taken of their own accord with no permission asked or granted by the company itself. The companies are billed by the contractor on a weekly basis for the work completed and time is never kept by the company, it's entirely kept by the contractor. They pay for their own gas and car upkeep required to perform the services and pass most of those costs on to the company.
There is no set schedule and no real "hiring" or "firing". Work is always available and it's entirely up to the contractor whether they wish to take advantage of it or not.
We do provide a general initial orientation to show what pet sitting consists of.
Some other important things to note. There is no set schedule. There is no record keeping by the company of how much time is spent actually contracting for the clients. Each client has the option to refuse service of a particular contractor. Most contractors learn things about the client that the company never knows. Obviously the environment that one enters with pets is ever changing, in terms of feeding schedules, walking schedules, medications etc. Most of the time these things are noted by the client to whichever contractor is showing up and the company itself won't have any knowledge of the information that is presented to the contractor.
The nature of the job is independent. The contractors provide their own means to provide service namely a car and they have absolutely no supervision what so ever when they provide that service. Anyone providing pet care and obtaining the "jobs" through a company could go out and provide this care on their own without the company. There is no licensing or schooling necessary. I point this out because the typical employee can't leave their job and suddenly do what it was they were doing on their own. If you operate a cash register, you can't quit and go run a cash register on the side of a road. You'd need to open a business that needed a cash register to run. This isn't the case with pet sitters. All one needs to find as a pet sitter, is a pet owner.
I'm wondering if you can give me a better idea what the legal definition of being an independent contractor is and if pet sitting for a company as an independent contractor is more employee like or more contractor like?
