> I've generally only regularly seen subcontracting used to do something immoral, unethical, or irresponsible
For example, almost all construction is subtracted.
You contract with someone for a construction project. They manage it and they subcontract to specialists to do the different parts of the job, such as electricians, plumbers, etc.
What on earth is 'immoral, unethical, or irresponsible' about that?
> What on earth is 'immoral, unethical, or irresponsible' about that?
I cannot comment on construction, but lets talk about big companies. Big offices contract out to cleaning companies in part in order to avoid having to take responsibility for pay and conditions. e.g.
"We pay all of our staff the London living wage".
"What about your cleaning staff?"
"Those are employees of our subcontractors, so we cannot comment"
> Paying someone a living wage should never be voluntary.
I didn't say it should.
> I guess we can abolish the minimum wage because everyone will do the ethical thing?
No I don't think that.
I'm not arguing for or against a living wage - it's just an example of something you could force a subcontractor to do using your contract with the prime contractor.
Whether you think the living wage should be voluntary or not... it's not an example of an issue with subcontracting. Subcontracting doesn't make any difference to how much people are agreed to be paid.
> For example, almost all construction is subtracted.
Yes, that was the first example that came to mind. You hire "ABC Fencebuilders" to build a fence, but without informing you, they subscontracted the job out to "BCD Fencebuilders" who subcontracted the job out to "CDE Fencebuilders". And so, if anything goes wrong, you have a half-dozen companies to deal with (none of which you actually hired, none of which you would have used if you had a choice), and no one will take actual responsibility for the situation, because they can all point to mysterious third-parties.
That's what's irresponsible about that. Residential construction is rife with this, it's routinely used to screw people over.
It's not necessarily a problem for someone to contract out work outside their industry or field (a carpenter might recommend hiring an electrician and/or a plumber, because a carpenter is not an electrician. All good, makes sense).
But banning subcontracting within the same industry (i.e., an electrician subcontracting out their work to a different electrician) doesn't seem like a problem at all.
I don't think you understand how contracting works.
If I contract you, and your subcontractor messes up, I don't complain to the subtractor, I complain to you. It's up to you whether you complain to the subtractor or just get it fixed.
There's no issue with 'they can all point to mysterious third-parties'. That just isn't how contract law works. You’re responsible for the work of all your subcontractors.
> but without informing you
They do inform you. It's completely normal and works fine. The top-level contractor is often explicitly called the 'prime contractor' with the expectation they'll do the work of finding other contractors for you. It's not a scam it's useful to consumers. I don’t want to find and manage ten different contractors - I want just one person to complain to.
> I don't think you understand how contracting works.
I think I do, I think you just haven't been hit by (or are otherwise ignoring) bad subcontracting behaviour.
> That just isn't how contract law works. (The top party in the agreement still technically holds legal liability for the subcontracting work)
True, but that only matters if you are wealthy enough to be able to afford the time and money and headaches to sue to enforce good behaviour. Normal people don't have lawyers on call, and can't afford to immediately file a lawsuit everytime someone does something irresponsible, and then wait for the whole thing to play out in court.
> They do inform you.
They don't always, and even if they do inform you, they can still do so without your consent.
(EDIT: Removed another subcontracting example that was difficult for folks to follow, and wasn't particularly important to the point anyway)
If you object to your contractor hiring any subcontractor, or just a specific contractor, you should write that into the contract. Just like a landlord has to bar subleasing in the original lease agreement.
No new law required. Problem solved.
I don't think that was the problem this law is trying to solve.
I also question the current headline. Comedians in general are not affected. Comedians may be booked for 30 engagements a year by 25 different parties. That would make them an independent contractor. They probably employ an agent to line up those bookings. An agent may be employed by multiple comedians. Now, what if there were a company that booked comedians all over the place, then payed various comedians to fill those slots? Doesn't that flip the relationship? Isn't the comedian now employed by the agency?
Is the comedy club contracting with the comedian or with the agency? Is the comedian contracting with the club or with the agency?
> If you object to your contractor hiring any subcontractor, or just a specific contractor, you should write that into the contract.
Agreed, but I still don't think people should have to. It should just be default. It feels like saying, "if you didn't want them to rob you, you should have written 'can not rob me' into the contract"
> I don't think that was the problem this law is trying to solve.
Also agreed. It seems clear to me what the law is trying to solve. If Uber/Lyft win this, then there's no reason for any company to not just reclassify every employee they've ever had as an independent contractor.
If Uber/Lyft win this fight, there's zero reason for McDonalds to not say, "oh, our franchisee's don't have any employees. Those folks in the kitchen are all independent culinary artists, who use our Nationwide Mealtime App Platform to bid on various 4-hour shifts across our network of franchise-owned kitchens. Each one of those people are absolutely all their own employers, and fully control their means of employment, so long as they produce McNuggets and BigMacs to our exact specifications (which are so precise only for your own health and safety and freshness, of course, and definitely not because we are some sort of employer directing their labour)"
To be clear, I personally think "contractors" is often a pretty scummy way of avoiding legal obligations. I agree with your McDonalds scenario.
But it doesn't help to confuse that with orthogonal issues. If you demonstrate that you confuse the two issues, you erode confidence that you are capable of producing correct solutions.
Being unable to afford a lawyer is still a thing even if the original contractor did all the work themselves. Selling a mortgage to another bank is not an instance of subcontracting. None of the things you're complaining about have anything to do with subcontracting.
For example, almost all construction is subtracted.
You contract with someone for a construction project. They manage it and they subcontract to specialists to do the different parts of the job, such as electricians, plumbers, etc.
What on earth is 'immoral, unethical, or irresponsible' about that?