Lots of Employees Get Misclassified as Contractors. Here’s Why It Matters
by David Weil

Interesting read on subcontractor versus employee designation.  Here are the last 2 paragraphs to pick your interest:

Of course, new technologies, the changing expectations of employees, and the dynamic nature of business will always affect the nature of work. This has been true throughout economic history. But this doesn’t mean we should forget or dismiss the underlying reason for our workplace laws going back to the turn of the last century: the recognition that workers need protections because the power to bargain is almost always skewed toward the employer. This imbalance has not evaporated in the flexible work environment of today, nor will it in the foreseeable future. Although we may need to assess whether the ways we provide protections are effective, the underlying commitment to workers should remain.

With the retraction of employer guidelines amid a business climate that views independent contracting as the default, is this commitment being eroded? We have already faced decades of flat real earnings and deteriorating labor conditions for much of the workforce and a widening of income inequality for the economy as a whole. Allowing further erosion of employer responsibility in the physical and digital workplaces will only intensify those troubling trends.

https://hbr.org/2017/07/lots-of-employees-get-misclassified-as-contractors-heres-why-it-matters