Organization Development Commons^™

A Third Class Of Worker: The Dependent Contractor, Lisa J. Fendrick

Student Publications

The following research paper is intended to address the worker classification issue that has intensified due to the rise of the gig economy. After reviewing the current literature on the subject, it will be made clear that a change must be made to the binary classification system that is used in the United States, and to the methods used to categorize workers within the system. This paper proposes the addition of a ‘dependent contractor’ category, which would be a subcategory of employee, and would fall between independent contractor and employee in terms of what benefits they would be entitled to. …