Posted on January 19, 2016
What about outsourcing your own work?
What would happen if you wanted to imitate this programmer, entrusting your work to a third person, without informing your employer? The person who will do it will be competent, paid, your employer will have his workload reduced, and you will be able to rest: what is the harm?
A surprising incident
The story made headlines in the United States and on the Internet, when a mobile phone company realized that one of its programmers was having another person do his work, a subcontractor who happened to be in Shenyang, China and paid less than a fifth of his salary. According to the investigation, he spent most of his time watching cat videos and surfing Ebay.
What would happen if you wanted to imitate this programmer, entrusting your work to a third person, without informing your employer? The person who will do it will be competent, paid, your employer will have his workload reduced, and you will be able to rest: what is the harm?
Subcontracting put to the test of the law
In fact, two things stand in the way of this undeclared subcontracting relationship: the personal nature of the employment contract that binds you to your employer and the prohibition of concealed work.
the personal character of the employment contract is a legal principle, the consequence of which is to prohibit to be executed by a third party the tasks assigned by his employer without his consent. The fact of having recourse to a subcontractor to carry out one’s own work is considered a breach of duty of loyalty and constitutes a serious misconduct. Remember that serious misconduct can justify a dismissal without compensationand, in this case, it is easily characterised.
An action punishable by a fine of 45,000 euros and 3 years in prison
Moreover, the fact of resorting to a third person to “subcontract” your work to them, on the sly, probably means that the person you hire to carry out the work in question is not regularly declared (for this you need an “employer” Ursaf number). It is then a question of hidden work, in other words “black”. Besides the turnaround (catch-up of unpaid contributions, potentially very high) you risk 45,000 euro fine and 3 years in prison.
The risks being very high and the profit relatively unattractive, have your work done by a third partywithout telling your boss, is a very bad idea.
