Anybody who signs that desrves everything they are or are not going to get so to speak.
Woomera has provided some very sage advice on where to go to get the
right advice about these matters.
Pilots are generally too smart by a half so I wont be surprised if most don't take it.
ginjockey mentions insurance; and so he should.
I know not how it works in the NT, but Workers Compensation where I come from is usually the
contractors responsibility and companies employing them require evidence of it before they will be employed as such.
Taking that to its logical extension I would be amazed if
ANY company employing your employer would allow you or any of
YOUR employers on
their site or to undertake work for them unless you could show written evidence of it or some other cover. Capische.
Workers Compensation Insurance is not cheap or easy to get and in any event requires of the contractor a
very high standard of duty of care. This quite naturally flows into the workplace provided by the employer and in which the contractor is required to operate.
If you think this is opens up a very big can of worms, believe it.
And we wont even go near the professional and personal liabilities working as a contractor as distinct from an employee brings.
Try paying off a multimillion claim for the rest of your life on those paltry wages.
What it all means is, that if you were charging for your service as a contractor the above rates are probably around less than half what they should be to compensate for the "risk" and "down time" between "paying jobs".
Why do you think the plumber charges his men out at $60-80 per hour or the auto maintenance shop similar or more.
Nah the only person who is "winning" here is not the pilots.
This whole exercise merely
shifts the "compulsory costs" of these items from the employer to the employee by changing his name to "contractor".
And then of course the ATO
will tax you as an employee if more than 80% of that income is earned with the same employer.
Neither does this mean that there cannot be a form of employment that works for both, but I don't see it here.
But dont listen to me I am not an expert, go tell it to the people Woomera has pointed you at.
Oh and BTW the "It wont happen to me" sounds pretty hollow, when you become disabled, unemployable or pay your hospital bills.
Workplace conditions for employees have been hard fought for, you do the math.
Simply, do what you do best and are trained to do, fly an aircraft, leave
ALL of the rest to the professionals, the, AFAP, your local IRC expert and or the places pointed out by Woomera, you do not have the training, expertise or the financial capacity to pay for the ramifications of screwing it up.
The pilots who "take it" for their own expedience and "hours" deserve the same disapprobation reserved for scabs as well as free entry into the Annual "Darwin" (as in Charles) awards. Quite appropriate really.
