Whether you are an employee or a contractor decides who owns your ideas
If a company hires you to invent, it owns your inventions even without a signed assignment. Commission the same work from an independent contractor, and the copyright stays with the creator unless a written contract says otherwise. That line between employee and contractor has become one of the hottest questions in the gig economy.
Employment is a paid relationship, usually under contract, in which an employer directs the work and pays wages by the hour, the piece or the year. Salespeople often earn commission, executives may get bonuses for hitting targets, and shares or stock options tie a worker's fortunes to the firm's. Benefits can include insurance, housing, pensions, childcare, tuition help and, in remote postings, meals, and they tend to reduce staff turnover.
A genuine contractor agrees on the finished result but controls how to achieve it, sells services to the public rather than one firm, supplies their own tools and covers their own expenses. Someone paid regularly, working set hours with company equipment under close supervision for a single employer, is generally an employee, and the business is then liable for their actions and owes them benefits. In the United States, workers count as employees by default unless they pass the so-called ABC test. New York and several other states also apply a faithless servant doctrine, forcing a disloyal employee to hand back everything earned during the period of disloyalty.
Most jobs can be ended by either side at any time, often with notice, an arrangement called at-will employment. Tenure protects some teachers, civil servants, professors and orchestra players from dismissal at will, while an employment bond penalises a worker for quitting. Workers can form unions to bargain collectively. Rules differ by country: Australia has worked under its Fair Work Act since 2009, and India offers fixed-term and permanent contracts, both carrying minimum wages and set hours.
Wage labour is the dominant way of working in modern mixed economies, and it has drawn fierce criticism. Socialists call it wage slavery, a comparison Cicero reportedly made too. The business theorist Jeffrey Pfeffer blames toxic workplaces, insecurity and long hours for 120,000 excess American deaths a year, which would make work the fifth leading cause of death in the country.
Source: Employment
