Bureaucrats insist volunteers are really employees, effectively shutting down innovative business
This is a wonderful country, and most of the people are pretty wonderful.
Unfortunately, far too many government bureaucrats seem to be shitheads.
Notice carefully that I didn't say "all"--the folks in our armed forces are great and I know a few government employees who seem pretty decent. Unfortunately...well, let's illustrate:
Rhea Riner founded an innovative children’s consignment clothing business--parents furnish their outgrown kids clothes on consignment and volunteer to help run the sale. In return for their voluntary help with the sale they get the first look at what's available and can get some good deals. The sales last a day or two and act roughly like garage sales.
Enter those oh-so-predictable bureaucrats from the U.S. Dept of Labor. Those dickheads concluded that Riner's volunteers are legally “employees” under the provisions of the so-called Fair Labor Standards Act. As such, the feds ruled the volunteers had to be paid. And not just a nominal amount, but federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
And of course anyone who pays wages to a "statutory" employee has to go through withholding, file monthly or quarterly forms with the IRS and remit withheld income tax as well as Social Security and medicare taxes. In fact as all of you surely know, the employer has to match the "employee's" SS and medicare tax. And then there's unemployment tax--for a volunteer you couldn't fire anyway, since they're volunteering! And don't even get me started with Workers' Compensation insurance.
Basically the ruling has killed her innovative business.
If I was an attorney I'd take on that suit in a second. She didn't hire the volunteers, doesn't literally tell 'em when to show up or when to quit. The only test of "employment" the volunteers meet is they're working.
Like all volunteers.
Now, I'm sure there are lots of hidden details in this story, but to me the point is pretty clear: Just like the county health inspector in, I think, Oregon, who harassed some ten-year-old for selling lemonade in her front yard without a permit, these shitheads have NO sense of proportion or reason. Their nutty insistence on classifying volunteers as employees clearly shows they've run out of useful, reasonable shit to do.
Fire them. Fire every government employee who participated in this outrage in any way. And take away their pensions.
People like this are like flies. All former military know the rest of the sentence.
If a fucking bureaucrat can arbitrarily claim a volunteer is an employee, language and common parlance are meaningless. Hell, if they get away with that, what would keep some pencil-dick from claiming each of us peasants derives an imputed income of $100,000 a year simply be virtue of living in a country where you can own private property (some kinds, anyway, and for now)?
Unfortunately, far too many government bureaucrats seem to be shitheads.
Notice carefully that I didn't say "all"--the folks in our armed forces are great and I know a few government employees who seem pretty decent. Unfortunately...well, let's illustrate:
Rhea Riner founded an innovative children’s consignment clothing business--parents furnish their outgrown kids clothes on consignment and volunteer to help run the sale. In return for their voluntary help with the sale they get the first look at what's available and can get some good deals. The sales last a day or two and act roughly like garage sales.
Enter those oh-so-predictable bureaucrats from the U.S. Dept of Labor. Those dickheads concluded that Riner's volunteers are legally “employees” under the provisions of the so-called Fair Labor Standards Act. As such, the feds ruled the volunteers had to be paid. And not just a nominal amount, but federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
And of course anyone who pays wages to a "statutory" employee has to go through withholding, file monthly or quarterly forms with the IRS and remit withheld income tax as well as Social Security and medicare taxes. In fact as all of you surely know, the employer has to match the "employee's" SS and medicare tax. And then there's unemployment tax--for a volunteer you couldn't fire anyway, since they're volunteering! And don't even get me started with Workers' Compensation insurance.
Basically the ruling has killed her innovative business.
If I was an attorney I'd take on that suit in a second. She didn't hire the volunteers, doesn't literally tell 'em when to show up or when to quit. The only test of "employment" the volunteers meet is they're working.
Like all volunteers.
Now, I'm sure there are lots of hidden details in this story, but to me the point is pretty clear: Just like the county health inspector in, I think, Oregon, who harassed some ten-year-old for selling lemonade in her front yard without a permit, these shitheads have NO sense of proportion or reason. Their nutty insistence on classifying volunteers as employees clearly shows they've run out of useful, reasonable shit to do.
Fire them. Fire every government employee who participated in this outrage in any way. And take away their pensions.
People like this are like flies. All former military know the rest of the sentence.
If a fucking bureaucrat can arbitrarily claim a volunteer is an employee, language and common parlance are meaningless. Hell, if they get away with that, what would keep some pencil-dick from claiming each of us peasants derives an imputed income of $100,000 a year simply be virtue of living in a country where you can own private property (some kinds, anyway, and for now)?
posted by SF at
9:39 PM
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