The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires minimum wages and overtime pay to be paid to non-exempt employees; this doesn’t apply to independent contractors because they’re not employees. Under a proposed rule, a definition of independent contractor would be adopted for FLSA purposes. Essentially, independent contractors are workers who, as a matter of economic reality, are in business for themselves as opposed to being economically dependent on the potential employer for work. The nature and degree of the worker’s control over the work and the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss would be indicative of economic dependence (an “economic realities test”).
New blog post today! Worker Classification: Where We Stand Now
