Posts tagged ABC test
Proposed NJ regulations would impact up to 1.7 million self-employed workers
August 5, 2025 // Director of Independent Women’s Center for Economic Opportunity Patrice Onwuka told The Center Square that “New Jersey is proposing to alter its employment test that determines whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor.” Onwuka said that “instead of greater clarity, simplicity, and certainty, the NJ Department of Labor is introducing new uncertainty, confusion, and complexity” with this ABC test. The ABC test would go from three one-sentence factors that must be met to prove independent contractor status to three factors each burdened by numerous sub-factors or, as shown in an Independent Women news release.
A Taft-Hartley Roundup of Recent Labor News
June 25, 2025 // For just shy of 80 years, conservative Americans and the Republican Party that provides their imperfect electoral vehicle have sought to advance a policy consensus on labor relations based on three principles: ensuring union membership and participation is voluntary, scrutinizing unions’ operations in exchange for their government-granted powers, and protecting the public from the fallout from labor disputes. As America sits by the pool at the beginning of what might prove to be a long, hot summer, what news is there about the Taft-Hartley consensus?
New Jersey Copycats California’s Job-Destroying Policy
June 3, 2025 // This proposal comes five years after the New Jersey legislature attempted and failed to codify the ABC test. A controversial bill in 2019–the same year that California passed AB5——failed to pass after loud public outcry from industries and independent contractors themselves. What policymakers could not enact through the law, they’re now seeking to advance through regulation.
Independent Contractors Take Center Stage for ‘Empowering the American Worker’
May 27, 2025 // However, expert witness Dr. Liya Palagashvili showed data of the deliberate harm done through California’s law AB5 and its ABC test that is also embedded in the federal Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO) Act and other statewide legislation seeking to restrict the work of independent professionals. Now, these results are causal, meaning we can definitely say that ABC tests cause these negative outcomes. No other studies to date have found positive employment effects from these laws. The research shows that restrictive ABC tests do not create more work opportunities. They eliminate both independent and W-2 jobs.
Kim Kavin: The Tangled Web
May 23, 2025 // I know how most writers’ minds work. I have a well-honed instinct for spotting a thread I should pull on because the facts might be tangled up in some kind of web. This hyperlink in Newsweek was a different kind of typo. The words “2020 analysis” actually did lead to a report about independent contractors—one that was written not in 2020, but instead in 2009. A wrong hyperlink of that nature is a red flag to any decent editor that there’s probably an association in the writer’s mind between the words in the hyperlink and where that link goes. Any experienced editor will pull on that thread to figure out if there’s an actual problem with the facts.
MICHIGAN: Independent Contractor Restrictions, New Wage Mandates Advance in Senate Proposal
May 18, 2025 // Senate Bills 6 and 7 would reshape employment laws in Michigan by adding problematic and onerous new “wage transparency” mandates and penalties on ALL employers and industries. Although the Senate Labor Committee limited the California-style independent contractor test to the construction industry (NAICS Sector 23), the change will significantly hinder the industry’s ability to use contractors and subcontractors — including business-to-business relationships — ultimately driving up costs across the board.
Commentary Kim Kavin: Worse than California’s AB5
May 6, 2025 // They tried, and failed, to do just that back in 2019-20 with legislation that mirrored California’s disastrous freelance-busting ABC Test law. Independent contractors from all across New Jersey cried foul. Our elected officials ultimately decided this policy was a bad idea for the Garden State. Trenton bureaucrats are now moving to impose this ABC Test interpretation on us all anyway, through rule-making, in their final months of having power before this fall’s election.
State labor department proposes new rules for independent contractor status
April 29, 2025 // The notice of proposal for new rules will be published in the May 5, 2025, issue of the New Jersey Register, and there will be a 60-day period beginning that day during which the NJDOL will accept written comments on the proposed new rules. The proposed rules outline the application of the ABC test, which is critical in determining whether a worker should be classified as an employee or an independent contractor under various New Jersey statutes, including but not limited to the Unemployment Compensation Law, the Wage and Hour Law, and the Wage Payment Law. The proposed rules include detailed guidelines for evaluating the three parts of the ABC test, ensuring that employers are well-informed and better equipped to make appropriate classification decisions.
OOIDA makes now-solo case in court that California’s AB5 should exempt trucking
April 23, 2025 // For OOIDA, which is carrying on the lawsuit that was originally filed by the California Trucking Association in 2019, the issue is clear: AB5 “categorically prohibits leased owner operators from operating in California,” OOIDA outside counsel Paul D. Cullen Jr. said in his opening remarks. (CTA last August decided not to pursue the appeal to the 9th Circuit.)
Kim Kavin: Intent to Reconsider
April 8, 2025 // The federal government has indicated in court that it may rescind the Biden-Harris administration’s independent-contractor rule and undertake the process of new rule-making. Yesterday, the U.S. Labor Department filed a status report in one of several lawsuits against the Biden-Harris administration over its independent contractor rule. This status report was filed with regard to the Frisard case, whose plaintiff is represented by Liberty Justice Center and the Pelican Institute.