Molly Ivins July 22AUSTIN — "When you strike at a king, you must kill him." So said Oliver Wendell Holmes. The Shiite Republican plot against House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to naught, alas. But it does give us fodder for meditation. For one thing, we notice that the Shiite R's are somewhat divorced from reality. (I had a communication from a Shiite Muslim objecting to this usage, and I can certainly understand his reluctance to be associated with the dimmer variety of right-wing Republican. But it is not my coinage; this is what these folks are called in political circles.) They hold their problems to be a combination of Gingrich's vacillations toward the left (which are not apparent from the left, take my word for it) and bad public relations. But when you hold up flood assistance for a bunch of drowned citizens in the Midwest for petty political reasons, your problem is not public relations or poor spin. Your problem is that you've done something fundamentally wrong. It would help if they could get a grip on that concept. Now, on to politics as usual. We continue to march militantly in the wrong direction — due, as ever, to the insane system of campaign financing we allow to persist. Here's the latest move by corporate America to make our lives more miserable. There's a stinky little hickey in the tax bill passed by the House of Representatives that would make it easier — much, much easier — for companies to reclassify their employees as independent contractors. And independent contractors, of course, do not get health insurance, pension benefits or unemployment insurance. They are not covered by the minimum wage, occupational safety regulations, age discrimination laws, etc., etc. As you know, companies have been using this "independent contractor" gig to sucker workers out of benefits with increasing frequency in recent years. This itty-bitty provision just happened to get snuck into the tax bill by Rep. Jon Christensen (R-Neb). The Treasury Department estimates that millions of workers would be reclassified as independent contractors if this turkey passes, losing all their benefits. Let's see if you could be one of them. As reported in The New York Times, here are the proposed new requirements for not being an employee: 1) There should be a written contract between the worker and the company.
2) The worker has a principal place of business that is not the company's (try pizza delivery folks, truck drivers, painters, carpenters, caterers — anyone who has to leave the main office to do his or her job) or the worker is not required to work exclusively for the company (good luck to all of you holding down two jobs). Got it? Now, if you pass those two tests and any of the following apply to you, watch out: 3) The worker has "a significant investment in assets and/or training" (heads up, computer jocks), the worker is paid primarily on commission (presumably including tips), the worker has significant unreimbursed expenses (try transportation) or the worker's service is for a specific amount of time to complete a specific task. Those of you in management should be aware that this ploy applies to you. According to The New York Times, Pacific Bell laid off hundreds of experienced middle managers several years ago and has hired many of them back as independent contractors — without health insurance, pension plans or unemployment insurance. This end-run around decades of hard-won worker's rights is backed by the usual suspects — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, etc. — with all the usual excuses. Oh, no, heaven forfend, they don't want to reclassify millions of employees. They just want to "clarify the definition so there is less of a gray area." They're not in the least interested in saving zillions of dollars and giving themselves a clear competitive advantage. Not to worry. The next time you hear some fat, dumb and happy citizen announce, "Oh, I'm just not interested in what's going on in Washington because it doesn't affect my life," give the "independent contractor" test above and see if that sparks some interest. And if you haven't been paying attention lately yourself and are wondering why your elected representatives would allow millions of workers to be robbed of health care, pension plans and unemployment insurance — millions of workers whose votes they presumably want — why, tune in to those "boring" campaign finance hearings for the answer. Politicians don't need votes to get elected; what they need is money. And they get their money from people who want favors in return — favors like "a clarification of the definition so there is less of a gray area." See ya'll in the gray area. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1997 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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