I read an article this morning on the TaxProf Blog discussing whether or not employers are required to compensate employees while their computers boot up. Apparantly there have been several companies (AT&T, UnitedHealth Group, Inc., Cigna Corp. and others) in the past year that have been sued because they are not paying their employees for the time it takes for their computers to boot up. The attorney who filed the suit claims that over the course of a week, these minutes add up and hourly employees are losing out.

Of course, the defense argues that the time spent while a computer does not constitute work. Employees are usually talking to friends, getting coffee or some other non-work related activity.

I can see both sides of the arguement here, but the real question I have is: How lousy is the work environment that employees would want to file a lawsuit over the time a computer boots up? Their is obviously a deeper issue here related to the overall level of job satisfaction that these employees have. Perhaps the Companies should try to figure out how to make their employees happy so that they can provide better service for their customers. Also note, just paying for the bootup time will not make them happy, it will just resolve this complaint. As I stated their is a deeper issue here.

While the exact line the determines who is an employee and who is an independent contractor is not always understood by everyone, there are some clear test that regulatory authorities use to determine if you are classifying people correctly.

Many employers would rather classify people as independent contractors because they are able to save significant employment taxes on these employees. In addition, they do not have to provide many other benefits that a typical employer would normally offer.

Regulatory authorities typically rely on three main test to determine the classification of a worker: (1) Behavioral control, (2) Financial Control, and (3) the Type of Relationship.

To find out more about what the regulatory agencies look at to make sure employers are following the rules, read our full article in the RedWolf Payroll Knowledge Base.