I think it is really interesting the direction this thread has gone. It is the direction that I feel strongly it needs to go. Contract climbers are workers who are taking control of their wages by forgoing the benefits of being an employee: work comp, unemployment insurance, not to mention the tax benefits of being a W2 employee vs paying self employment tax… But why not form companies or shift companies to be slightly different models where a rising tide raises all ships instead of one guy at the top benefiting greatly and paying everyone else the minimum to maximize profit? This model encourages people who feel like they have topped out salary wise to start their own thing or become a contract climber to have freedom and to start getting their slice of the pie. A good friend of mine in Portland and I regularly have conversations about a different model where the business would not use contract climbers but instead everyone would be an employee paid an hourly rate and be covered by workers comp. At the end of every quarter hours would be tabulated and based on the profit and loss statement for that quarter, bonuses would be paid out. All financials would be accessible to employees to review. It doesn’t have to be owned or controlled by the employees or all decisions made by consensus or anything like that to really give people a sense of a company working for them as much as they work for a company. Maybe I’m too much of an optimist about this subject, but I think that workers who feel that it benefits them to think about profitability will certainly do so more.
