Determining the Employer in an Employment Relationship

This article discusses the tests and factors involved in determining the employer in an employment relationship, using a case study as an example. It explores the responsibilities and control of the employer, as well as the distinction between an employer and an independent contractor.

Running head: BUSINESS LAW
Business Law
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Employment relationship can be complicated and it may involve legal issues in case
of any kind of dispute between the employer and the employee pertaining to the terms of
employment. There are certain tests that help to determine the employment relationship, the
status of employer and employee. The paper strive to answer the question regarding the status
of the employer of the workers stated in the case study.
A person is an employer who is bound to a worker or an employee contractually, and
is responsible for paying salary to the employer in exchange of the work that the worker
provides. It is the employer who primarily exercises control over the worker; an employee is
free from the any external control other than his own employer (Kalleberg & Marsden, 2015).
Even though the employer enters into an agreement with a third party for a project, the
allegiance of the employee do not change; the employees or the workers remains subordinate
to their initial recruiter. The employer is the one who enters into an employment contract with
the employee and decides the employment relationship and job role of the employee and
therefore it is the employer who takes the final call regarding terminating an employee on the
logical grounds suitable for the situation (Dol.gov, 2019). In order to determine who the
employer of a worker is, it needs to decide as to who would carry the burden of vicarious
liability for any tortious act of the worker. In addition, the facts that an employer is the one
who deals with the taxation of the employees’ salary, superannuation benefits, payments of
statutory benefits, et cetera makes distinction between an employer and an independent
contractor.
In the case study, it is said that the workers were recruited and paid by the staffing
firm that engaged in landscaping services. The staffing firm also provided health insurance
and withheld taxes of the workers, along with provided them with equipment and necessary
supplies for the landscaping services. It is the firm that usually supervises the workers for the
projects for their clients. This clearly establishes the fact that the staffing firm is the employer

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of the workers. However, it could be seen here that Client A made an agreement with the
staffing firm thereby reserving the right to supervise the workers of the firm for completing
their project, even though they did not exercise their authority as such. Client A only reported
the performance of the workers regularly to the staffing firm by evaluate their quality of
work, without interfering or directing them about their way of work. The agreement between
the staffing firm and the client does not change the dynamics of the employer-employee
relationship between the staffing firm and its workers, even though the client reserved the
right to supervise the workers for the particular project (Hoffman, Casnocha, & Yeh, 2013).
Therefore, it could be deduced that it is the staffing firm who is the real employer of
the workers and not the contracting third party or Client A, as it is the staffing firm who
recruited and paid salary to the workers.

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References
Dol.gov. (2019). Employers' Responsibilities | U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved from
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/disability/employersresponsibilities
Hoffman, R., Casnocha, B., & Yeh, C. (2013). Tours of duty: The new employer-employee
compact. Harvard Business Review, 91(6), 49-58.
Kalleberg, A. L., & Marsden, P. V. (2015). Transformation of the employment
relationship. Emerging trends in the social and behavioral sciences: An
interdisciplinary, searchable, and linkable resource, 1-15.