A growing number of companies across the country are purposely misclassifying workers as self-employed 'owners' for the sake of saving on labor costs. Doing so allows the companies to avoid paying health care, to ignore worker regulations, shift the burden of payroll taxation to the workers and obtain an uncompetitive advantage over businesses who do the right thing. A recent investigative report by Utah's KSL 5 News took a closer look at how the process works:

Thousands of Utah construction workers are employed in dozens of large projects not as traditional laborers, but as “owners” under a workforce re-classification process that critics say could allow employers to avoid paying benefits, payroll taxes and workers compensation insurance, according to an investigation by KSL Television.

The Utah Attorney General’s Office and the Utah Labor Commission told KSL they are each looking into the practice, which contractors say has allowed such companies to under-bid competitors on construction projects by as much as 50 percent. The companies who pursue the practice say it is legal under Utah’s limited liability laws, and isn’t designed to shirk any tax or payroll obligations.

In particular KSL 5 looked at a company called U&I, LLC:

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And for the 8-hour workday, thank the labor movement:

In the United States, Philadelphia carpenters went on strike in 1791 for the ten-hour day. By the 1830s, this had become a general demand. In 1835, workers in Philadelphia organized a general strike, led by Irish coal heavers. Their banners read, From 6 to 6, ten hours work and two hours for meals. Labor movement publications called for an eight-hour day as early as 1836. Boston ship carpenters, although not unionized, achieved an eight-hour day in 1842.

In 1864, the eight-hour day quickly became a central demand of the Chicago labor movement. The Illinois legislature passed a law in early 1867 granting an eight-hour day but had so many loopholes that it was largely ineffective. A city-wide strike that began on May 1, 1867 shut down the city's economy for a week before collapsing. In 1868, Congress passed an eight-hour law for federal employees, which was also of limited effectiveness.

In August 1866 the National Labor Union at Baltimore passed a resolution that said, "The first and great necessity of the present to free labour of this country from capitalist slavery, is the passing of a law by which eight hours shall be the normal working day in all States of the American Union. We are resolved to put forth all our strength until this glorious result is achieved."

Gee. No wonder the Republicans hate labor!

But we still have a way to go:

The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation time, according to a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. As a result, 1 in 4 private-sector workers in the U.S. do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays.

The report, No-Vacation Nation, by Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt, finds that European workers are legally guaranteed at least 20 paid vacation days per year, with 25 and even 30 or more days common in some countries.

The gap between paid time off in the United States and the rest of the world is even larger when legal holidays are included. The United States does not guarantee any paid holidays, but most rich countries provide between 5 and 13 per year, in addition to paid vacation days.

“Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn't worked,” said John Schmitt, senior economist and co-author of the report. “It's a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don't get any paid vacation or paid holidays.”

Remember, this is not the time to be grateful for what little you have. This is the time to fight.

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I originally wrote this post in August, 2011 on the heels of the debt ceiling debacle, but given the recent attention focused on the Supreme Court as they write their opinion on the constitutionality of The Patient Protection Act, and the above "Up with Chris Hayes" segment, I decided to dust it off as a reminder of just how critical every district across this entire country is in this election. With a few additions in [brackets] to bring it up to date, I give you ...

The Supreme Court Is More Important Than Us

2010 was a devastating election for Democrats. We've been witness to that over the past [seventeen] months, with horrendous policy changes taking place all across this nation. And at no time have we felt it harder than [last summer during the] pit-bull style fighting that the tea party wing of the Republican Party engaged in over what should have been nothing more than a procedural vote to raise the Debt Ceiling of the United States.

The day following President Barack Obama's announcement that a "compromise deal" had been hammered out between all the parties was fraught with outrage by the more liberal members of the Democratic Party. And it was an all-too-familiar image of the anger felt by those same liberal Democrats that gave us the results of the 2010 election. ...

So why is it that when Democrats get angry they stay home on election day, but when Republicans get angry, they vote?

The "leg up" that the GOP has on Democrats and Liberals in most elections is that they formulate their message in the broader, bigger picture. They get people to care more about the ideology than self. We see evidence of the success of this strategy every time middle-class Republicans go to the polls and vote "against their own self-interest." Democrats, on the other hand, have a habit of seeing everything through the lens of "self." And if they feel personally slighted ("That's not what I elected him to do!"), they don't vote.

I understand why Democrats frame their message more towards the individual. We are a party focused on protecting individual rights and freedoms. We stand for a helping hand when it's needed, equal access to marriage, giving teachers and students the tools and resources they need to learn and grow, for immigrants to feel welcome here and bring needed skills with them, and for more people to be able to vote, not fewer.

I don't suggest for a moment that Democrats abandon those principles, only that we re-frame the way in which we present these ideals, from focusing on the "individual," to focusing on the "collective." And not because the individual isn’t important, but because a) the country on the whole really is more important, and b) because we have enough evidence to show that that strategy works.

And the reason it’s not just important, but critical, that we adopt a messaging strategy that works, is because the future of our nation for generations to come is quite literally at stake.

Continue reading after the jump ...

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