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Some claim that freelancing, self-employment, whatever you want to call it, is surging in developed economies. For example: More...

ICA Executive Director Ken Phillips spoke at a ‘Liberty’ conference in Sydney over the weekend. With over 350 people in attendance and with more than 70 speakers it was a stimulating, ideas-packed weekend. Not everyone agreed with each other, but all present agreed on the right to speak freely.

Ken talked about how we at ICA have used the Australian Constitution to defend individual liberty, specifically the right of people to be self-employed. You might recall last year our:  More...

Last week, our Executive Director, Ken Phillips, contemplated some ‘revolutionary’ thoughts around self-employment as part of the summer break ‘think’ process.  

Trump
But those thoughts are minor compared with President-elect Donald Trump’s proposals for self-employed people in the USA. According to Forbes magazine and CBSNews,  Trump is going to open the tax floodgate for the self-employed, allowing them to access the 15 per cent tax rate he intends to apply to companies.  More...

At ICA, we come across all sort of weird attacks on the self-employed. But one of the strangest is that we ‘screw over ourselves’. That was the argument mounted in California’s self-described ‘premier monthly business publication’, Comstock.

The ‘save us from ourselves’ argument was essentially the justification for Australia’s recent (fortunately failed) attempt to destroy the businesses of 35,000 owner-drivers. Lawyers are preparing the case for the class action to recover losses. Info here.  More...

The debate never seems to stop about whether being an independent worker is a good or bad thing.

Californian regulators and the Teamsters Union seem intent on forcing ride-sharing workers to be employees. There’s a $12 million lawsuit against Lyft  and Uber is involved in long drawn-out Californian litigation. Further, Californian lawmakers are looking to make it very difficult to work in the ‘gig’ economy.  More...

ICA is proud of its efforts over the last seven years arguing for the unfair contract laws for small business people. We’ve said that we’re delighted that the Turnbull government is moving forward with the laws. And we’re thankful to the Senate and to Senators for making sure the laws will have a wide application.  More...

There’s no question that the status of independent contractors is under massive attack in the USA from regulators, courts and activist lawyers. We’ve been following this for some time.

The giant transport company FedEx has for years been fighting to defend the independent contractor status of its drivers. But, in California, FedEx has now agreed to pay $228 million in compensation. This follows a 2014 Californian court ruling that FedEx ‘misclassified’ its drivers as independent contractors.  More...

In recent times we've heard of a number of cases where local tax authorities have made it difficult to engage independent contractors. This sort of story is not confined to Australia. In fact, it is common and global. I had several days of discussion with the Professional Contractors Group in London last week. Their tax problems under IR35 continue unabated. More...

‘eLabour’ is changing the face of ‘employment’ across the globe. The Wall St Journal says that it's necessary to focus on being ‘employable’ rather than ‘employed.’ More comment from ‘New Jobs for Massachusetts’.  More...

It’s good to see a new organization in the USA has been set up to defend independent contractors: www.itsmybusiness.com. And in the UK, a new group has been formed to defend ‘entrepreneurs’: www.centreforentrepreneurs.org. It’s groups like these that we’re looking to work with internationally to improve protections for the right of people to be self-employed entrepreneurs. More...