Re: [Iasa20] 6635bis

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

Just one point:
On 27-Apr-19 09:19, John Levine wrote:
> In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>>>> The slant towards contracting made sense prior to forming the LLC, but now that the LLC has been formed
>> these functions could be performed by an employee. 
>>
>> Specifically, I would regard that as a broken promise: not lightweight, not cheap.
> 
> Sorry, but as others have implied that's just wrong.
> 
> US employment law is complicated.  I have been an employer and an
> employee, been a contractor, and hired contractors, and I would still
> not claim to be an expert.  Whether someone is a contractor or an
> employee has nothing to do with the length of the contract or the
> terms on which it might be broken.  It has to do with stuff like who
> pays for medical insurance (a big deal in the US) and pension
> contributions.  It is not entirely up to the two parties -- there are
> cases where someone is hired as a contractor, appeals to the labor
> department, and it decides that the facts of the relationship make the
> person an employee.  You cannot say whether a contractor is cheaper or
> more expensive than an employee without knowing the details of that
> particular job and the particular agreements.
> 
> This is the kind of business detail that we invented the LLC to take
> care of.  None of us are employment law experts and it would be absurd
> for us to define rules that purport to define the details of
> employment relationships.
> 
> The IAB can certainly say who to hire as the RSE or whatever, what the
> job entails, for how long and what would make the parties end the
> agreement early.  Beyond that, it's up to the LLC.

Yes, and the draft text, like RFC6635, is quite open on this.

Where it isn't open is that it intentionally specifies subcontracts
for the technical work, and I haven't seen any argument why this
WG is allowed to change that. As I understand it, since the RFC Editor
is not in the scope of the WG charter, we are simply making clerical
corrections to RFC6635, roughly equivalent to s/IAOC/LLC/. Anything
beyond that belongs elsewhere (and has implications beyond the IETF).

   Brian