My question involves independent contractors in the state of: Arkansas
I recently responded to a Facebook advertisement searching for an independent contractor to rebuild vintage campers. On December 5th I was hired and for the first week I was trained by another employee/ independent contractor and payed $10 hourly. The owners of the business payed me hourly (not the other “IC” worker) and they considered the hourly work independent as well (1099).
There was no written contract and it wasn’t until a week or two after starting that we made a verbal agreement on the independent work. Verbal agreement was that all work done on the business owners campers would be paid hourly and all work done on other people’s campers would be independent. For the independent work me and the other worker would split the profits made minus materials and 10% to the business owners. Payments by clients would be 40% at start for materials, another 20% at half completion and the final 40% when the camper was finished. The business owner said it would take about a month to rebuild each of their clients campers so the money appeared to be well worth being independent. The first job as an IC was already 40% paid for around $6,000 by their client when I started. The remaining 60% to be split by me and the other worker was around $8,000.The business owner had already spent the first 40% and said we would only receive what was left 60%. Almost no work had been done and nearly no materials were bought with the 40%. I went along with it as it still seemed worth while.
After the first 5-6 weeks of work I had worked both as IC and hourly on the business owners campers but only made around $400 from hourly work at that point. Based on what I was originally told by the business owner we should have already been finished with the first camper yet we were still waiting on materials that the owner wouldn’t buy because costs had gone up so they were searching for a better price. At this point I approached the business owner and explained I was financially strained and I could not go on working without making more money. He agreed to give us more hourly work at $100 a day to keep us going. He said he would allow at least one day a week at $100 a day going forward to relieve some of the financial stress. That same week I worked 3 days hourly. However when I got my check the next week he only paid the $10 an hour for those days and not the $100 a day as recently negotiated. At this point I was just happy to have some money and I didn’t want to strain our relationship so I didn’t say anything. The following week he only assigned us 6 hours of work and again only paid $10 an hour. Now I’m getting frustrated.
He finally found cheaper materials about 8-9 weeks into the job and spirits were back up. We did continue doing other IC work on the camper until this point however our halfway point had been seriously delayed due to the materials hold up. Once the materials were received and used we were arguably 2 /3’s finished (tear down and rebuild combined) with the entire process and arguably halfway rebuilt. At 10 weeks in I asked about being paid and the owner said we needed to now get more done to be halfway done in his opinion. He explained another week of work “probably”. Now very frustrated at 11 weeks into the job still no 20% and now my bills are behind and I’m very close to losing my land. At this point we are again waiting on the owner to get materials of which his wife said were ordered and would be there the next day... the next day materials didn’t show and I asked him what was going on and he said he was waiting until he thought we were ready. This sort of thing happened repeatedly throughout the job where one would tell us one thing and the other would tell us something different. Realizing I was being screwed around and we would not get halfway finished before I would lose my land due to being late on payments and I also realized we were likely a month or so from being finished. At this point I quit and he said I wouldn’t get paid unless he did. This has led me to this site as I wanted to figure out what rights I have to get what’s owed and how much they owe.
The details:
I received around $700-$800 total in hourly work in the 11 weeks... all of which they considered 1099.
All work was done in the business owners shop and all of the major tools were owned by them.
Only form of time keeping was a dry erase board in which we only wrote our “hourly” work on. However I basically worked 9-5 so easy for me to keep track of my time spent.
Hourly pay became significantly more than IC work which is sad at $10 an hour.
There was no work schedule.
I do not own my own business and the other worker trained me throughout the job on things I didn’t know.
I did not have my own employees.
The owner had full control of time management due to waiting on material and in some instance would instruct us of the order in which we needed to do the work.
At points the owner did ask us to report what we had finished after daily work.
No invoices were supplied by me to the owner as he controlled the material purchases.
No expenses or profit/loss was acquired by me due to the owner paying for, ordering and receiving materials.
There was no deadline for my employment and would be considered an ongoing job relationship.
I never advertised my services however I did advertise the business on FB to increase camper sales for the owner. When approached by possible clients wanting work done I passed the information to the business owner of which he turned away due to not wanting to take on more work.
I did not carry insurance as I did not own a business and being financially stressed could not even carry personal insurance coverage.
I had no clients of my own and there was no written IC contact as stated earlier.
My services were a key aspect of the regular business of the company and the relationship was open ended.
Sorry this is long but I wanted to add all information as possible because I desperately need help. $700 in 11 weeks of work is wrong and I feel the owners only used me as an IC to save money. The owner even told me that paying employees was killing his profits and is why he hired me as IC to take over the rebuild process.
The people are not good people. There was no heat which caused me and the other worker to miss some days when it was 5 degrees. There was no bathroom and we used an outhouse. The only plumbing was an outside pump coming out of the ground. I was also exposed to asbestos.
Do I have a strong case to sue these people and can I get liquidated or punitive damages? He is refusing to pay me and if I should have been considered an employee he is now withholding what’s owed. Please help!!!!!
I recently responded to a Facebook advertisement searching for an independent contractor to rebuild vintage campers. On December 5th I was hired and for the first week I was trained by another employee/ independent contractor and payed $10 hourly. The owners of the business payed me hourly (not the other “IC” worker) and they considered the hourly work independent as well (1099).
There was no written contract and it wasn’t until a week or two after starting that we made a verbal agreement on the independent work. Verbal agreement was that all work done on the business owners campers would be paid hourly and all work done on other people’s campers would be independent. For the independent work me and the other worker would split the profits made minus materials and 10% to the business owners. Payments by clients would be 40% at start for materials, another 20% at half completion and the final 40% when the camper was finished. The business owner said it would take about a month to rebuild each of their clients campers so the money appeared to be well worth being independent. The first job as an IC was already 40% paid for around $6,000 by their client when I started. The remaining 60% to be split by me and the other worker was around $8,000.The business owner had already spent the first 40% and said we would only receive what was left 60%. Almost no work had been done and nearly no materials were bought with the 40%. I went along with it as it still seemed worth while.
After the first 5-6 weeks of work I had worked both as IC and hourly on the business owners campers but only made around $400 from hourly work at that point. Based on what I was originally told by the business owner we should have already been finished with the first camper yet we were still waiting on materials that the owner wouldn’t buy because costs had gone up so they were searching for a better price. At this point I approached the business owner and explained I was financially strained and I could not go on working without making more money. He agreed to give us more hourly work at $100 a day to keep us going. He said he would allow at least one day a week at $100 a day going forward to relieve some of the financial stress. That same week I worked 3 days hourly. However when I got my check the next week he only paid the $10 an hour for those days and not the $100 a day as recently negotiated. At this point I was just happy to have some money and I didn’t want to strain our relationship so I didn’t say anything. The following week he only assigned us 6 hours of work and again only paid $10 an hour. Now I’m getting frustrated.
He finally found cheaper materials about 8-9 weeks into the job and spirits were back up. We did continue doing other IC work on the camper until this point however our halfway point had been seriously delayed due to the materials hold up. Once the materials were received and used we were arguably 2 /3’s finished (tear down and rebuild combined) with the entire process and arguably halfway rebuilt. At 10 weeks in I asked about being paid and the owner said we needed to now get more done to be halfway done in his opinion. He explained another week of work “probably”. Now very frustrated at 11 weeks into the job still no 20% and now my bills are behind and I’m very close to losing my land. At this point we are again waiting on the owner to get materials of which his wife said were ordered and would be there the next day... the next day materials didn’t show and I asked him what was going on and he said he was waiting until he thought we were ready. This sort of thing happened repeatedly throughout the job where one would tell us one thing and the other would tell us something different. Realizing I was being screwed around and we would not get halfway finished before I would lose my land due to being late on payments and I also realized we were likely a month or so from being finished. At this point I quit and he said I wouldn’t get paid unless he did. This has led me to this site as I wanted to figure out what rights I have to get what’s owed and how much they owe.
The details:
I received around $700-$800 total in hourly work in the 11 weeks... all of which they considered 1099.
All work was done in the business owners shop and all of the major tools were owned by them.
Only form of time keeping was a dry erase board in which we only wrote our “hourly” work on. However I basically worked 9-5 so easy for me to keep track of my time spent.
Hourly pay became significantly more than IC work which is sad at $10 an hour.
There was no work schedule.
I do not own my own business and the other worker trained me throughout the job on things I didn’t know.
I did not have my own employees.
The owner had full control of time management due to waiting on material and in some instance would instruct us of the order in which we needed to do the work.
At points the owner did ask us to report what we had finished after daily work.
No invoices were supplied by me to the owner as he controlled the material purchases.
No expenses or profit/loss was acquired by me due to the owner paying for, ordering and receiving materials.
There was no deadline for my employment and would be considered an ongoing job relationship.
I never advertised my services however I did advertise the business on FB to increase camper sales for the owner. When approached by possible clients wanting work done I passed the information to the business owner of which he turned away due to not wanting to take on more work.
I did not carry insurance as I did not own a business and being financially stressed could not even carry personal insurance coverage.
I had no clients of my own and there was no written IC contact as stated earlier.
My services were a key aspect of the regular business of the company and the relationship was open ended.
Sorry this is long but I wanted to add all information as possible because I desperately need help. $700 in 11 weeks of work is wrong and I feel the owners only used me as an IC to save money. The owner even told me that paying employees was killing his profits and is why he hired me as IC to take over the rebuild process.
The people are not good people. There was no heat which caused me and the other worker to miss some days when it was 5 degrees. There was no bathroom and we used an outhouse. The only plumbing was an outside pump coming out of the ground. I was also exposed to asbestos.
Do I have a strong case to sue these people and can I get liquidated or punitive damages? He is refusing to pay me and if I should have been considered an employee he is now withholding what’s owed. Please help!!!!!
Classification of Workers: What to Do if You May Have Been Misclassified As an Independent Contractor
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