[woah]

Yea, the definition of contractor that often gets thrown around in these discussions seems to exclude most real world contractors. I’ve worked as a construction contractor and a software contractor, and I did not get to set my hours in either one. It seems like the legal system is out of touch with the world of business.

The real definition of a contractor may be “an employment relationship in which the worker does not want to assert employee rights”. In my case I did not want to be an employee because contractors got paid more for the same work, and I liked taking time off between gigs.

[mattkrause]

The ability to set hours isn’t the only distinction, but it’s an easy and obvious one to test. Using your own tools is another one: it’s a rare deck builder who shows up and asks to borrow your saw.

That said, there is a lot of grey area and it’s also true that a lot of jobs are misclassified. That doesn’t make the classification meaningless though, and I would thrilled if governments were more proactive about making sure people go the rights they’re entitled to.