Companies misclassify workers to avoid offering workers' compensation coverage

The Illinois state government is investigating whether some Illinois construction companies are deliberately misclassifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees.  The  companies are allegedly boosting their profits by failing to withhold taxes and, more seriously, by shirking their responsibility to carry workers compensation coverage.  Employees of these allegedly unscrupulous companies without workers' compensation insurance who are unlucky enough to be injured on the job are the ones who ultimately have to pay for these ill-begotten profits.

This is another example of how employers continue to run roughshod over the workers' comp system, while workers' compensation insurance companies spend billions to convince the public that the blame for rising costs lies on worker malfeasance.