Contract to Cheat

[ordnance11]

how employers who had received federal stimulus money gouged workers and taxpayers
Here is one part of the series...

At one low-income housing project in North
Carolina, two-thirds of the workers hired to pour concrete, paint,
shingle roofs and hang drywall were treated as independent contractors.
Here’s what would have needed to happen with these 100 workers to pass
the federal tests:

• Each worker could come and go as he pleased, setting his own hours and schedule.
• Each
  worker owned and used his own tools and supplies and had enough of a
  line of credit with vendors to buy the necessary materials, such as HVAC
  equipment and siding.
• Each worker tackled the work as he saw fit, not heeding direction and correction from superiors.
• Each
  worker secured enough compensation to allow him to earn a living and
  cover the overhead that a self-employed person must handle.

All 100 of these workers earned from $7.25 to $20 an hour
Read
more here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/static/featu ... rylink=cpy

And no that is not an aberration..it's fairly common in the construction industry. And not just the construction industry. Especially in the south.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Rajvik]

Dude that aint just in the south thats contracting/general contractors in general.
 

[robkelk]

Dude that aint just in the south thats contracting/general contractors in general.

That ain't just in the USA, either. The inquiry mentioned in http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/key-playe ... -1.1166580 is still going on...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[ordnance11]

Rajvik wrote:

---

Dude that aint just in the south thats contracting/general contractors in general.

Let's just say the most egregious use of this practice are in areas and industries where there is no strong union presence. Guess where is that prevalent?
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Dartz]

If you want scumbaggery, how about this one.

If a contractor quotes you 30 grand, and then you turn them around - after the job is finished - and literally say take 20k for the whole job or take nothing and go bankrupt, while standing on the doorstep of a brand newly build house.... kindly fuck yourself.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[ordnance11]

Dartz wrote:

---

If you want scumbaggery, how about this one.

If a contractor quotes you 30 grand, and then you turn them around - after the job is finished - and literally say take 20k for the whole job or take nothing and go bankrupt, while standing on the doorstep of a brand newly build house.... kindly fuck yourself.

Dartz,
In the U.S. that is what a contract and insurance bonds are for. To prevent that sort of shenanigans of that sort between buyer and builder. Either you guys are more trusting over there or your business models are more primitive than I thought.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[robkelk]

Rajvik wrote:

Dude that aint just in the south thats contracting/general contractors in general.

Let's just say the most egregious use of this practice are in areas and industries where there is no strong union presence. Guess where is that prevalent?

Quebec - I've already posted the link.

No, wait - they have a rather strong union presence...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Rajvik]

Union or non union has nothimg to do with it, its all about how far general contractors will go to make a buck. And the sword apparently cuts both ways in Ireland.
 

[Dartz]

It's a bit more complicated than that....

Where I work, if we're taken on to do a job we just plain don't have the in-house staff to do many jobs that we design and specifiy, so we maintain a pool of contractors who're electricians or plumbers or the like who we'd normally go to for jobs. They're in business for themselves and'll work for other people as much as they work for us, and bill us through an invoice. It's a flexibility that enables small companies like us to gain traction.

There're big construction companies who'll have a load of employees who'll usually be tackling bigger projects that justify all that overhead, while smaller companies will tend to pluck up the smaller developments, and will rely on contractors because we're just not doing the work to justify full employees, and the contractor's able to go out and look for other work on his own. One of the services we offer is that we design a system that meets the spec' we've been given by an architect, and then we handle the mechanical and electrical contractors putting it in to the house so the homeowner's only paying us rather than handling the project management all by himself.

You'll get homeowners who'll actively try and fuck their builders over. The problem with so many 'small business' contractors is that, even if they're each behind a 'corporate' persona rather than sole-trading, some of them can end up spending a fair bit of cash on a job upfront to get it put in, then all the homeowner has to do to make the bill go away is refuse to pay them, until suppliers or sub-contractors get snitty and call for a windup or a personal bankruptcy. It's beyond rare that it happens because if the business doesn' fall over they either call in debt collectors or go to court - but it does and it's utterly destructive because even if a business does have some hedging to protect itself, it still hurts and pisses off everybody up the chain who's made to wait for their money.

Problem is, the industry has been cut right to the bone and Irish people really don't seem to give a fuck about the quality of work done, they just go for the cheapest upon cheapest. They just act mistified when cheap shite breaks in 4 years, or it doesnt deliver near what they wanted. We're also finding that a lot of the 'good' people have actually left the country to go to places where there's demand.

Good companies however, tend to keep good contractors by not screwing them over and treating them like dirt. Problem is a lot of people just don't give a fuck either way..... we've found that maybe 80% of builders we talk to don't even know the regulations. But we've found that paying bad money gets poor work done, which costs more in the long run in hassle for malfunctioned equipment and repairs. Or even one 'thirty year' experience electrician who couldn't follow a wiring diagram and needed handholding for hours. But most homeowners and the like just don't think about the long run.... it's like we're nationally blind to the concept that something like 'tomorrow' might come along.

What good people we have a pool of, do charge a fair bit more for the work. But you're not wasting days telling them what to do or how to do it.... or going back to site and sorting out their fuckups afterwards. In our experience, paying good contractors good money often works out cheaper in the long run when you factor in the hassle down the line - especially since modern home heating systems are nearly industrial in their complexity to meet energy efficiency regulations. (In fact, we use industrial PLC's that require programming where almost everyone else uses whitebox uncomfigureable things supplied by a heating manufacturer - and we get much better performance and reliability because of it, and I got a job because that's my background)

There are however, companies out there who abuse the hell out of this. One of those is a competitor of ours where basically the entire salesforce is techncially 'self employed'. If anybody dared to challenge it, it'd be a clear cut case of them avoiding their responsibilities as an employer, but they've got friends in high places who like to point to that company as a 'success story' for 'their county' when reminding the local expectorate to 'Vote for Me' . Another nasty one is a notorious direct marketing company who operate under a dozen pseudonyms I mistakenly applied to when they listed a job as a technical position - when it was in fact a door-to-door sales position for which I'm ill-suited for at best - and they threatened to tell the welfare that I'd refused a 'job' if I didn't sign what was obviously a fucking shit deal that would literally cost me more money than I could possibly earn. The natural reponse from me was that they offered me wasn't the 'job' I applied for - it wasn't even a 'job'.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Rod.H]

A result of some of what Dartz has mentioned is that recently during summer, groups of rogue Irish tradies come to Australia and perform illegal work for cash. And the other I just wonder how much money is changing hands and would Inland Revenue be interested?

I'd be thinking IT as I can't think of a local union that will take us - well there's one, but its linked to organised crime and a major political party - and I think there might be an appropriate livery company, but are probably meaningless outside of London.

[ECSNorway]

I have an ... uncomfortable personal history, with unions.

Back when I was a Callow Youth (tm), I got my first real job (cashier/bagger at a grocery store). A week later I'm wondering where the heck my paycheck got to. When I ask my supervisor, he tells me I hadn't filled out all the required paperwork yet.

What was I missing? The union membership application. I hadn't cared, I didn't -want- to be in the union, this was only a temp job while I finished high school and applied to colleges. It wasn't like I intended to make a career at this shop. But their policy was firm: no union, no pay.

So I signed. Which required me to pay a union "initiation fee" (ie, scam) in addition to the regular dues that members pay. And since the initiation scam - er, fee - was more than I was going to earn in six months of working there, I arranged for it to be paid off as a series of small deductions instead of all at once.

Three months later, the store went under. That branch of the chain closed. The union promised all members that they would find them jobs at other branches.

Note that I said "them", not "us". Since I hadn't paid off the initiation scam^h^h^h^hfee, I wasn't a member, so I wasn't eligible for assistance.

Which left me out on my butt, quite a bit poorer than I'd hoped to be, unable to find a job since the local shops had already glutted themselves on the summer crowds getting out of school and I hadn't expected to need to be -part- of that crowd.

And nursing a rather serious grudge against unions in general.

I find the idea of the Union to be good and valuable and necessary for the well-being of industry.

I find the current implementation of the Union to be, like any other large and powerful organization, hopelessly corrupt and run by malicious bureaucrats rather than people who are actually interested in helping individual workers.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Rajvik]

The option of joining a union is a good thing, I refuse to work in union only shops because once there is no choice then you ha e lost all semblance of control.

Dartz it looks like Ireland gets it coming and going as well as not being able to win for losing. You have my condolences on that.