Rich's area - Is it time to drop the 3-man officiating crew?

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Off topic. Over the years we have occasionally discussed not working games for certain schools (payment issues, safety issues, security issues, fan control, unsporting issues, etc.) but have been told by attorneys that this would break our contract with the CIAC, and put us in serious legal jeopardy.

It is clear your area does not have a true Independent Contractor relationship. If you did they cannot make any official work any game they do not wish to work.

Peace

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

It is clear your area does not have a true Independent Contractor relationship. If you did they cannot make any official work any game they do not wish to work.

I was speaking collectively, "We're (my board) not assigning officials to your school (school system) if your don't start paying us in a more timely manner", but I still see your point.

While I fully agree with you regarding my independent contractor status, we can still block out specific sites, schools, teams, genders, and levels, on Arbiter (with some limitations), and also blanket gender "block" with an email to our assigner. We can also block out any dates and times that we do not want to be available (although we're later fined if we don't block and we're assigned and don't accept).

While I'm fairly certain that many Forum members are actually true independent contractors, I'm also pretty sure that some just toss the word around willy-nilly without fully understanding all the labor and tax implications. I once spent considerable time on IRS websites and labor websites trying to figure out exactly what it means to be an independent contractor, and unless one is a tax attorney, or a labor attorney, the qualifications are often difficult to understand, especially since the laws often vary state by state.

[JRutledge]

I will just say it this way. If we in Illinois had an association do all our assigning for all games and levels, that could violate state law being an independent contractor and those associations would have to start likely paying some form of workman's comp. So no organization really has that kind of "official" relationship to assignor or only hire those from one organization. And certainly, these organizations are in no way paying the officials directly through any bank account. It might be a little more complicated than that, but I can tell you that every association I am a member of changed their constitutions to reflect that they do not assign any games. The assignors that belong to our associations have no obligation to the association, but to assign who for their respective conferences that hire them. And I know all assignors hire people outside of their main or primary association.

Peace