Hey. I haven't been able to read past the headline yet (very busy day today) but I just wanted to say I work for tech workers co-op in the UK. We focus on Open Data work.
Can I suggest anyone asking legal questions states where they are? While the principals are the same, legal options will differ massively between countries.
I was also at the founding of CoTech (a UK network of tech cooperatives). Common Knowledge are a member.
Happy to answer any questions here or hit me up at alex at commonknowledge.coop for anything further.
In the UK the process of setting up a simple co-operative takes about a month. It's filling in a set of forms on top of a normal company registration and applying to Co-operatives UK for accreditation. Basically no sweat.
Oh, interesting! I was discussing how people might aggregate their data for their own benefit with someone from MIT. I would love to talk to some and see if this idea is valuable.
So I've only had time to skim read the intro but it looks like this is all about a worker's co-op of freelancers that carry on doing work on a Freelance basis for clients.
We aren't that - we are one company, with regular employees. Our clients make a contract with the company, not with any one of us, and the staff members that do particular work for a client may change, just like a normal company. (The fact those employees also hold a share and are directors doesn't alter the nature of our contracts with clients).
It basically prevents one person "contractor" companies from acting like employees but getting paid like a business and so somehow avoiding tax. If the HMRC thinks your contract with BigCo means you are a "disguised employee" then they will ask you for your missed back taxes.
But on April 2020 they will stop asking me for my back taxes and will instead ask the client for whom I work (ie BigCo). As such BigCos across the UK are unwilling to face years of potential back taxes and will from April 2020 do some combination of
- state every freelancer / contractor working for them is really a disguised employee so that the employee's company must pay the equivalent income tax / NI
- let go of their contractors en mass
- push their contractors to major suppliers like Accenture
- move their UK based work off shore to NYC / Paris / Mumbai
Basically combined with Brexit, UK tech jobs are going to disappear / take a 25% haircut or go abroad.
Happy to chat later (will read later to), but I would also point people towards https://www.coops.tech/ which lists many such co-ops. You can find their chat board at https://community.coops.tech/ Also, in the U.K. https://www.uk.coop/ is a great resource.
Can I suggest anyone asking legal questions states where they are? While the principals are the same, legal options will differ massively between countries.