Employees vs Subcontractors
At Vanguard, we only use in-house, hourly, payroll employees for our painting work – if a paint contractor you are considering uses sub-contractors, you should consider the implications.
Brokering jobs to sub-contractors who don’t really function as companies is one of painting’s dirty little secrets and we believe our clients deserve better. 
When you contract with us, we’ll never sell or broker your job to a couple of guys in a station wagon that we found on craigslist. Jokes aside, we take this so seriously that we put it right in our contracts: we will never use subs for our painting work.
Here are a few things you may not know about sub-contracting within the painting industry:
Lack of Accountability
Employers have no leverage or supervisor rights over their subs. While some companies may claim to have amazing policies in place to deal with subs, by law subs can set their own hours of work, hire who they want, take on other jobs at the same time, and really have no accountability to the customer. They have no real job, career, or tenure to lose - just a one-time contract. This fosters a lack of accountability to the project and usually results in sub-par workmanship. A company with an employee-based model shares accountability with its workers and will do a far superior job in overseeing their projects.
Poor Safety
Sub-contracting can also be used to circumvent Worker’s Compensation Board of BC (WCB) safety regulations. WCB provides insurance for workers injured on the job. But it is not a free service and by law companies must pay to insure their workers in case of accident. With a sub-contractor relationship the onus to provide coverage is shifted from the main contractor to the subs. This can lead to serious problems for clients. If a sub is injured on your property, without WCB coverage, you can be liable for the injuries to that worker. 
Vanguard Painting Ltd insures all of its workers with WCB, ensuring not only a safer environment for our painters, but a safer experience for our clients as well. If a sub can’t provide you with an up-to-date WCB clearance letter or registration number, look out.
Questionable Quality
We all know that you get what you pay for. With subcontractors, however, what you pay is often much higher than what you get. Why? Most sub-contractors are severely underpaid. Frequently they are sold the painting contract for less than half of what you are paying the main contractor (and they also have to provide the materials!). So while you might have thought you were paying for a $10,000 paint job, you’re actually getting the quality of a much lower priced job. If you do have subs working on your project, ask them what they are being paid to do the work. Odds are you won't be getting what you paid for. With companies that use employees, on the other hand, a much bigger portion of the contract price goes directly into the project itself. As such, these companies, like Vanguard Painting Ltd, can deliver a much higher level of quality and service to their clients.
