Provedor Informal????

Hi all
I once again seek your advice. Our business is suppliying hotels and resorts with entertainment, The hotels use us on an informal basis as season changes and demand change weekly, Therefore i would like to know if we should take on new performers to work with us can we pay them as an informal provider (provedor informale) and avoid holiday pay, liquidation, medical etc. They will supply me with an invoice at the end of the month including N.C.F and i pay them accordingly.

The main reason for this is that if we have employees on a contract, should the work dry up we are still obliged to pay the salary. We are also a very small family business and we do not really want more employees than we already have, but due to current demand we need more performers.

I also need to be careful that using the informal provider route that it does not after three months fall into the category of having "established a relationship" and therefore they are then entitled to benefits, liquidation should we simply not require them. Hotels call us weekly and tell us what they need and when, at the moment we can not supply demand but that can change in an instant.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

yes i have now made up my own invoice for informal providers and have also now got the N.C.F numbers also. I just think it makes sense to do it that way, as sometimes we need them everyday and others once a week and as i said before we can not predict what the hotels will need from us in the near future. We can't and don't want to be obligated to employees.

Thank you for your reply.

Thank you Senor Guzman, I was hoping you might reply on this subject. Sometimes depending obviously on what the hotels ask for from week to week, we might use someone-for example a firebreather 5 times one week then not again for two weeks. Some of our performers are in demand more than others, but it can change over night. How would you suggest we approach any new or exsisting staff? I know one of our competitors i suppose you would call him, gets his staff to sign a legal document/contract to say that they are aware at signing that liquidation will not be paid etc etc. But to my understanding and again please correct me if i am wrong, it does not matter what they sign as the law states that it must be paid if the employee nt fired for gross misconduct and the law of the Dominican Republic overrides any contact that says otherwise. I do not think his employees are ware of that which is probably why it works, but i don't want to go down that path as it is unethical in my mind. I want to obide by the rules but also i have to take care of the business, in some ways we are more of an agency, hotels or individuals call us and we contact our performers and tell them where to be and when. Goodness me i am rambling, I would very much appreciate your suggestions Senor Guzman if you would be so kind. Thank you

Also we are contacted by other agencies, one in particlar who we perform our large show for one a week. But should he call tomorrow and say's "the season is low sorry but the show is cancelled at this particular venue, we will contact you again when we need you". I dont feel that we would be entitled to liquidation and i wouldnt have the nerve as he sure as hell wouldnt be contacting us again. We don't work for him we just provide a service, yes on a regular basis but we are not employees as such. Or am i wrong? Wouldnt be the first time ha ha.

Oh yes you are right, I realise that is would be thrown out in court and as i said i do not agree with trying to con your workers or try to get out of what you are legally obligated to do. I think the reason it works for him is that his workers are not knowledgable about the labor laws and as far as they are concerned they have signed a piece of paper waving all rights to liquidation etc and don't realsie that it is in fact not worth the paper it is written on. I am trying to work out how legally i can protect my workers and my business similtaniously. I can not guarantee work from one week to the next, Business is very good but on occasions we can be notified by a hotel in low season not to return until further notice or be cancelled with less than 24 hours notice due to an unexpected event at the venue. I will as you suggested contact a lawyer well practiced in the labor laws here. Thank you again