[Hnaomyiph]

Some people like the flexibility that a contractor role provides. Forcing everyone to become an employee with benefits adds costs that many places will forego by hiring on only a handful of contractors or removing the role entirely.

[vidarh]

The point is that the people who end up "reclassified" as employees by these kind of decisions are people who are already de-facto employees in that they do not have the flexibility that genuine contractors do.

[TomMarius]

No, I have the flexibility, and I have chosen to work for one client. This new unforeseen interpretation of my business contracts (are you even aware of the ramifications for my financial planning, insurance, etc?) is forcing me into things I don't want to do nor my client is interested in, thus making me less flexible, and forces me to pay for things I am absolutely not interested in.

[vidarh]

Where are you that has rules that prevents you from being treated as a contractor if you genuinely have the flexibility?

Most places that force these kind of treatments tends to do so only when people have no ability to set their schedule or no realistic prospect of negotiating terms etc. in ways that makes them indistinguishable from employees.

Most of the time there are ways out of this and/or all that ends up being required is for you to be an employee of your own company rather than exploit tax loopholes that were never intended to be used this way. Eg. this is the case in the UK where the dreaded IR35 closed tax loopholes that let people avoid paying themselves a salary for their contracting and instead cut costs by taking out dividends or making their spouses directors etc.. The change did not in any way stop contracting even for a single client, but it prevented people from using it as a way of avoiding tax.

In most of those instances "forcing you pay for things you're not interested in" boils down to not forcing society to take risks on your behalf because people are using contracting as a means to avoid e.g. social service payments and the like.

I'm sure there are places that are exceptions where some people get caught out, and that's a shame, but most of the time these rules benefit far more people, because of the extensive use of "contracting" as a way for employers to get out of obligations with people who have no effective leverage.

[TomMarius]

I am in Czechia. I am paying less social security (and am getting proportionally less in return) and exactly the same healthcare insurance as everyone else.

If I was to be an employee, I would (or rather, my employer) be forced to do everything based on the employment law, which has severe restrictions on me as well as on my employer and on the kind of relationship we have, which causes extreme loses to me (as I like to be paid proportionally to returns) + paying more for things I don't want and up until now wasn't required to have.