Generally, unskilled workers’ services do not involve the exercise of any trade, skill,
or business judgment. The work they do is so simple in nature that direct supervision
is not necessary; however, the right to control is present and enforceable by the
right to discharge the worker. Laborers usually work on the employer’s premises at
specified times, and with tools and facilities the employer provides. They may work
on a permanent basis, services may be recurring, or they may be traveling workers.
Pay is normally computed on a time rather than a lump-sum basis. The looseness of
the arrangement between the laborer and the purchaser of the services, combined with
the fact that supervision over the work is usually not necessary, makes it difficult
to realize that the employer has a right to direct and control the worker. For example,
a homemaker may tell a repairperson who hired him to paint the porch today, mow the
lawn tomorrow, and construct a rabbit hutch the next day, etc. The homemaker knows
he can do these things or she would not have hired him. The homemaker leaves the repairperson
to work independently. Both of them know that the homemaker has the right to stop
him on one job and start him on another job, to speed him up or slow him down, to
express displeasure with the rabbit hutch and make him rebuild it or, to stand behind
him and direct his every action. He knows he must comply with her demands or he will
lose his job.