Independent Contractors
President's Memo
TO: MCAA Membership
FROM: Mark Chiusano, MCAA President
RE: Legal Challenges to IC Status
Maintaining the right of courier firms to utilize Independent Contractors
is one of the founding principles of the MCAA. In the past we have fought
both legal and legislative battles to keep IC status as a viable option
in the same day delivery industry. We are seeing our way of doing business
under attack - this time primarily at the state level. Your Board has been
monitoring several decisions from a number of states that have called into
question currently accepted practices concerning IC's. A recent case in
Massachusetts being only the latest decision to go against a courier company.
State courts are now referencing the decisions of other state courts (the
Massachusetts case noted a similar case in Illinois) and we must guard against
a snowball effect that could sweep the country state by state.
The MCAA Board has decided on a number of actions to fight a battle- and
we need your help.
Our plan is as follows:
Legal review of all pertinent court cases to determine basic
facts used by the court in each case.
Develop some basic guidelines to help courier companies fully
understand the differences between employees and independent
contractors. We also plan to help companies that are facing audits
or other legal challenges by working closely with them to help
in any way possible.
- MCAA may support the legal challenge of IC case where victory
can help the entire industry.
We plan to support selected lobbying efforts in states where
we feel there are issues at hand.
We have involved our new partners at the NFIB in the effort.
We have been in contact with the NFIB Legal foundation on this
issue - NFIB has offices in all 50 states.
We will include educational programming on maintaining IC status
at the annual convention in May of 2003 in Orlando. The next
issue of Courier World Magazine will have an informative article
on this pressing issue.
The MCAA web site will have a new section on IC issues including
a primer on what to do if you are audited.
If your company has had a favorable ruling on the State or Federal
level, please let us know so that we may archive the decision for future reference.
If your company is subject to legal action on the state level that threatens
the status of your IC's, please notify us immediately. Also inform us if you
know of any other courier companies in your state that have been targeted.
We will keep you posted on this critical issue and urge you to
use the Association's resources. |
