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Glite Dictionary
🤝 To hire externally 🚫 To refuse payment
to contract out

to contract out

7.9
To refuse to pay a union fee used for political purposes
  • phrasal verb
  • /kənˈtrækt aʊt/
  • Archaic
translation icon : renunciar a
  • Don't contract out!

Examples

  • Why would you contract out of the union fees?

  • Many employees are unaware that they can contract out of certain union payments.

  • She chose to contract out when she disagreed with the union's political activities.

  • Union members have the right to contract out of paying the political levy.

  • The workers decided to contract out the negotiation of their salary terms to a third party.

  • Many teachers chose to contract out to avoid paying the union fees that support political campaigns.

  • After much discussion, the team agreed to contract out the responsibility for union dues paid for political lobbying.

Surface Forms

contract out infinitive
contracted out past
contracted out past participle
contracting out present participle
contracts out third person singular

Morphology

contract + out

The meaning 'to arrange for work to be done by an outside person or company' is directly composed from 'contract' (to arrange by agreement) + 'out' (to outside/externalize), so a B1 learner who knows those constituents can infer the sense. This verb + particle pattern expressing externalization is common cross-linguistically (e.g., subcontratar/contratar externamente), supporting a transparent rating.

Etymology

Contract out comes from the idea of making a separate contract to be out of a rule. One popular story says workers signed papers to be left out of a union payment, so the phrase came to mean 'to refuse to pay' that levy.