[HeyLaughingBoy]

But you are assuming that they are being treated as "lesser" when in my experience, they're simply treated as "not employees."

I was at my last job for over 15 years. For almost all of those 15 years, I saw the same van from a local electrical contractor in the parking lot pretty much every day. The same electrician was on site daily doing one installation or maintenance job or the other.

Now, I would imagine that the same guy was there every day because he knew our systems and the people he was working for/with very well so there was no benefit to us or the contracting company to send out a different electrician every day.

This is pretty much the same situation you describe, but there is no reason for the company to have electricians on staff, so it's contracted out. Likewise, the cafeteria staff, the security and the mailroom/office staff were all employees of Sodexho, Ricoh and some unknown security company.

Hell, even the tiny 6-person company that I started my career with, had an outside person come in twice a week to clean the place. It was a welcome change to the employees to having to do it ourselves. Should we have kept someone on staff simply to keep the office clean? No, that's what contractors are for!

[lovich]

When they work for a single client, everyday, at the client's direction, then they are an employee in fact if not by law. Treating them differently is a way for the real employer to save money and remove risk, its not just paying someone to show up for a few hours to clean when they are also cleaning other clients offices