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Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
<quote>This is the result of the widespread misuse of the term "contractor." Unless you are carrying your own 1099 or corp-to-corp contract, you are not a contractor. If you are working through an agency, the agency is the contractor and you are a temporary employee of the contractor. If you are not working through an agency, then you are a temporary employee of the company, their use of the term "contractor" notwithstanding. </quote>
Good definition, to which might be added a caveat that employers are as willing to call their temps "contractors" as the temps are willing to work in that category. Specifically, the temp believes there is some prestige or aura attached to the term "contractor" that is worth at least as much as lost "fringe benefits." Silly people.
The current trend is not so much temp vs contractor as it is a multi-tiered employee status. Consider: an executive is an employee, but is given substantially more perks (and compensation) than "regular" employees. In what way is this different than creating a tier or category of temps that is paid a salary with fewer benefits, regardless of the term used to describe them?
As long as there is a substantial labor pool from which to draw temps, job rotation is good for everyone except the hardcore "lifers," and they are only pretending to be "permanent employees" anyway; as Gene Kim-Eng pointed out, they are simply temps and nothing more, regardless of length of employment.
Consider: rotation after a fixed period spreads the work among a larger number of temps. I do not see anything at all harmful in the practice, and see a LOT of benefit in increasing turnover.
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