Being injured on the job can be devastating.
More so if your job involves physical labor, and you need to take time off to recover.
But what if, at a time when you need help the most, you’re left with no resources
of compensation?
What do you do?
Check out this web doc to learn about how one stripper took on the system, and what
that means for the rest of us.
It was July, 23rd 2008 -- An exotic dancer by the name of LeAndra Lewis was working the
Boom Boom Room in Columbia, South Carolina...when suddenly a gunfight broke out.
During the uproar, a stray bullet flew across the club and hit Ms. Lewis in the abdomen.
This isn’t the beginning of some murder mystery; Ms. Lewis survived, but the gunshot
left her with some really serious injuries.
Unable to work, she decided to file a claim for workers compensation.
But Ms. Lewis was denied…at least at first.
At a hearing in 2012, the Supreme Court of South Carolina ruled that Ms. Lewis was an
independent contractor and not an employee, which meant that the Boom Boom Room didn’t
have to pay her a dime in compensation.
Ms. Lewis appealed in 2015 and after a lot of back and forth between the club and the
claimant, the court ultimately decided that Ms. Lewis was in fact, an employee and she
won her compensation.
Yes, this story might be a sensational one, but aside from the strip clubs and gunfights,
at it’s core is a problem that is affecting millions of hardworking Americans.
It highlights how many workers are being denied critical benefits all because they are classified
as contractors and not employees.
In the age of the On Demand Economy, contract work has been totally rebranded to sound more
appealing, liberating even.
Companies like Uber and Lyft espouse that being a contractor allows you to be your own
boss and work when you want.
But if this sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
While there may be some benefits to contract work, in reality, it’s probably companies
that are benefitting the most from this deal.
It’s estimated that a company can lower their labor costs by around 30 percent simply
by hiring contractors instead of full-time employees.
That’s because this labour strategy allows companies to avoid paying payroll taxes, insurance,
benefits and workers' comp premiums.
And it’s a potential loophole that can be easily exploited as the line between what
defines a contractor vs. an employee is blurry.
Which is probably why companies seem to be deliberately misclassifying their staff as
contractors on a massive scale.
Financial analysts are concerned that the lack of clarity over laborer definitions coupled
with the increasing number of contract workers in America is creating an economic epidemic
that’s affecting millions.
Right now, America’s growing number of contract workers are going to work without a safety
net.
Because if you’re injured on the job, there’s no compensation and no insurance to help you
out.
And it’s not just individuals who are losing out.
Reports have suggested that the government has lost billions in tax revenues because
of misclassified workers.
The United States Department of Labour has gone so far as to say that “The misclassification
of employees as independent contractors presents one of the most serious problems facing affected
workers, employers and the entire economy”
Which is why cases that challenge misclassification, like Ms Lewis’s, are so important.
Workers and the way we work, needs to be defined because if more and more companies choose
to switch their employees on to contracts you too could soon find yourself working without
a safety net, with nothing to catch you should you fall.