Further guidance can be obtained by contacting your nearest Wage and Hour office. An independent contractor is an individual who performs services but is not an employee of the person utilizing the services. Independent contractors are not covered by MSPA protections that apply to employees. If the individual is economically dependent upon that person then that individual is an employee. Simply being licensed as a farm labor contractor does not in itself make the FLC and independent contractor.
Joint employment means than an individual is employed by two or more persons at the same time.
Where a joint employment relationship exists, each of the employers must ensure that the employee receives all employment-related rights granted by MSPA, such as accurate and timely disclosure of the terms and conditions of employment, written payroll records, and payment of wages when due. This is done by examining all the facts in a particular case and examining the realities of the economic relationships between the workers and the alleged employers. The ultimate question is whether the agricultural work is economically dependent upon more than one person . Joint employment is not presumed to exist in agriculture, and no one fact or set of facts will necessarily result in a joint employment determination. The revised regulation does not change the substance of the joint employment test, but states the test more clearly and completely than the previous regulation.