Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
It’s often more cost effective for companies to hire independent contractors to perform certain jobs, rather than hiring employees. Even for part-time employees, companies are responsible for paying things like employment taxes and Social Security, none of which they have to worry about with independent contractors. There are benefits to working as a true independent contractor, but because independent contractors are not protected by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), workers have to meet very specific requirements in order to legally be considered independent contractors.
Under the FLSA, workers classified as independent contractors must be able to negotiate their own rates, have control over their own schedule, the environment they work in, and have a certain level of discretion as to how they perform their duties, among other things. Any and all workers who do not meet all of the necessary qualifications for independent contractors must be classified and compensated as employees, including benefits (such as health insurance) for full-time employees.
Many employers have been illegally classifying drivers as independent contractors and FedEx is just one of several companies to have recently faced multiple class action wage and hour lawsuits from drivers alleging they should have been classified as employees.
Current and former FedEx drivers from approximately 40 different states have been filing wage and hour lawsuits against the giant shipping company for more than ten years now. Many of those lawsuits were consolidated into multidistrict litigation (MDL) and then certified as class actions so that drivers from all across the country could combine their claims against FedEx. Continue reading ›