Re: What a way to start my day, had to fire a guy....l.grrr
Right to work is different than employment at will. A "right to work state" is a state in which employees may not be forced to join a union. While employees in a company that resides in a right to work state may still vote for and accept collective bargaining, employees who do not wish to join the union can not be forced to do so.
The employment at will doctrine is different and exists in most states, while there are few right to work states. I don't know the law in CA in general but I do know that it is particularly friendly to employees in the arts. I suspect, as "Sarge" says, that it favors the employee in most other professions as well.
The problem that you may have with this person is that, while you think he is a contractor, the IRS may disagree. Unless he works completely independently and is responsible to you and your company only for the end result, he is not a contractor. He must also stand to lose money on the job and there are other requirements.
From reading your post, I don't think you really understand the contractor relationship. If he is truely a contractor, you are not his boss but, rather, a manager who oversees his contract with your company. Others who are employees of your company are not his coworkers and neither are other "contractors." Your job is to make sure that he achieves an end result only. That is not to say that you must retain him if he is not satisfying the terms of his work agreement with your company, but you can't "fire" him just because you don't agree with the way in which he gets an acceptable end product accomplished.
If you have, in fact, misclassified him, your company may be liable for employers share of payroll taxes. If he should have been classified as both an employee in general and a "non-exempt" employee too, he may be able to come back at your company for past overtime. If that happens, you will also most likely be assesed damages payable to both the state and the employee.
As I said before, you might want to consider what is coming down the road. I don't mean to point the finger at you personally but I have to say that, if I were a contractor for your company, and had been operating with previous management in the appropriate way, I might view a new manager who really doesn't understand the relationship, poorly. I might well treat him with indifference and insist that he mind his own business as long as I was getting the work done per my agreement with the company. If that same manager terminated my contract without just cause, I might well consider my business to be damaged and seek relief in the courts.
If, on the other hand, I discovered that I was truly an employee, and had been working for a company that had been trying to get away with not paying payroll taxes, providing workers comp insurance and paying me overtime, I might have a surprise for that manager as well.
Just a few things to think about.
