I am a remote tutor for a tutoring company. I signed a contract that was very clear I would be considered an independent contractor (so no benefits, withholdings, etc). We negotiated my hourly rate, and the contract I signed stated that all training would be unpaid.
It seems like the company uses “expected to” instead of “required to” in order to protect themselves from being accused of misclassifying employees, and loop holes like “you must do what we teach you in training… but you don't have to come to training”. Do you think I have a case for being misclassified?
Why I may be a correctly-classified IC:
- I set my own availability (within their requirements/constraints).
- I use my own physical materials (computer, headset, home office).
- I am usually not directly observed while working.
- There are no meetings I am explicitly required to attend.
- Training is not explicitly mandatory (though it de facto is, as “cause for contract termination” explicitly includes “failure to comply with company model of services”).
Why I may be a misclassified employee:
- Contract requires me to be available M-F, for a certain minimum number of hours, during a certain time; within these constraints, I set my availability. The company then makes a teaching schedule for me based on that availability.
- The teaching materials are solely provided by the company (online workspace, educational games, digital books, standardized record-keeping spreadsheets, teaching scripts). We are not allowed to use any other materials.
- I am occasionally observed or given feedback by “quality control” staff when I teach lessons, with or without notice.
- I am required to make notes in a specific place/format/time that are regularly reviewed by “quality control” staff to make sure I am teaching the lessons according to the specific company methods, at the expected pace.
- We need explicit permission to deviate from the prescribed lesson plans in any way.
- We are expected to check/respond to emails and schedule 2x daily; contract states I will not be paid for time spent on emails, record keeping, meetings to discuss progress, etc.
- It did not state in the contract that our unpaid training is mandatory, but in effect it is, because they have their own very specific instructional methods protected by NDAs, which no non-employee could know beforehand.
- In addition to the several weeks of unpaid onboarding training (2 weeks full time), there are unpaid training sessions for about 1-2 weeks every few months (12 hours/week).
- We are expected to stay in the zoom meeting for 20 minutes when a client doesn't arrive to the session, but we are not paid for no-shows according to contracts.
- It is a regular occurrence for “quality control” staff to ask to schedule 15-60min meetings (unpaid) checking in on our progress. No explicit “demands” for these meetings are made but it is a clear expectation that we will comply.
- We are being drug tested 6 months into working for the company (not because of suspicion of drug use, just “routinely”).