[jasonwatkinspdx]

Quite a few people here are bemoaning the MS lawsuit result as some sort of bad call or unnecessary burden on businesses. That's not the root problem, and misunderstands the scale of what was going on at MS.

I have personal friends that joined MS during this era. They were told by their managers, off record of course, exactly how to game WA unemployment during their 6 months on, 3 months off, contracting years. They were doing stuff like flying to Mexico for 3 months, then filing false job application progress notifications to unemployment from their laptop on the beach.

The root problem here is that sophisticated businesses can game what should be straight forward worker protections. The MS case is a bandaid. The problem is the erosion of labor rights and negotiating power that's been a decades long trend in the US.