Fair Work Ombudsman: Salespeople, independent contractors or not?

Telco Services Australia Pty Ltd and Trimatic Contract Services Pty Ltd, two national companies, will both face court over the allegations of numerous contraventions of workplace laws, including incorrectly designating 10,000 salespeople as independent contractors instead of employees resulting in "massive underpayments". The case is scheduled to be heard in the Federal Court latter this year in June.

Sham contracting is defined as employers disguising or misrepresenting an employment relationship as an independent contracting arrangement, to avoiding employee entitlements like minimum pay rates and leave. The Fair Work Ombudsman has said that in this case some of the people were involved in telemarketing services from the companies' premises while others were engaged in door-to-door sales - he also stresed that hiring independent contractors is not in itself illegal saying however, that  "if a party sets out to avoid its workplace relations responsibilities, and that avoidance takes the form of using the commercial processes to find a business partner who will undercut established minimum wage rates, then that may well be unlawful."
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