Posts tagged ABC test
ATA Expresses Concern Over Labor Secretary Nominee Julie Su
March 17, 2023 // In a letter to U.S. Senate labor leaders, American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear expressed concern about the track record that Labor Secretary nominee Julie Su would bring to the job, specifically as it relates to the rights of truck drivers to be independent contractors. “California’s AB 5, which Ms. Su helped pass and implement as Secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, essentially outlaws their business model,” Spear wrote in a letter to Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-La.). The letter was copied to members of the committee.
California Court Rebukes War on Workers
March 16, 2023 // This obviously poses an existential threat to emerging app-based companies that rely on a contractor model, but it also posed an entirely predictable threat to many traditional professions where workers eschew the 9–5 cubicle or factory floor work model. When the Legislature codified Dynamex via Assembly Bill 5, which went into effect in January 2020, it exempted many industries — primarily those with the most influential lobbies. Nevertheless, economic destruction ensued. Companies eliminated jobs rather than hire people as salaried employees. Publications — including Vox, which ran a piece championing AB 5 — laid off its California stringers. Musical groups that relied on gig workers had to shutter their operations. All types of freelance workers — from photographers to sign-language interpreters to rabbis — suddenly found themselves in a pickle. The same Gov. Gavin Newsom who used his vast executive powers to suspend laws during the COVID pandemic refused to suspend AB 5, even as people who were forced to stay at home lost their stay-at-home freelance opportunities. Some Californians embraced the workaround of starting an LLC, but that imposed new costs on workers who already were struggling. Dynamex Operations West v. Superior Court of Los Angeles
Opinion: Let’s Continue to Fight for Freelancers
February 24, 2023 // New Senate HELP Committee Chairman and avowed socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is eager to reintroduce the PRO Act in the chamber soon. The bill’s most recent version contained the following provisions: an ABC test that deems most workers employees and not independent contractors; a statute to abolish right-to-work; making union membership conditional for employment; and giving unions unfettered access to private worker information.
Sens. Braun, Burr, Thune, and Rep. Foxx Lead Republican Colleagues in Urging Department of Labor to Protect Independent Contractor Classification
December 19, 2022 // Senators Braun, Burr and Thune are leading a bicameral letter with Rep. Foxx (R-N.C.) urging the Department of Labor (DOL) not to move forward with its proposed rule for determining independent contractor classification due to the negative impact on workers and business, the test’s lack of clarity and the devastating consequences for the U.S. economy. They are joined by Sens. Hagerty, Romney, T. Scott, Cramer, Johnson, Barrasso, Cassidy, Lankford, Marshall, Hoeven, Blackburn, Boozman, Tuberville, Young, Lummis, Lee, R. Scott, Inhofe, Graham, Fischer, Ernst, Shelby, and Rounds as well as Reps. Wilson, Thompson, Walberg, Grothman, Stefanik, Allen, Banks, Comer, Fulcher, Keller, Miller-Meeks, Owens, Good, McClain, Harshbarger, Miller, Spartz, Fitzgerald, Steel, and Pete Sessions.
Commentary: What’s Next for America’s Independent Workers?
December 15, 2022 // If various state and federal policymakers have their way, however, Ms. Rankin’s business model might be soon regulated out of existence — whether she likes it or not. Rankin, like every other owner‐operator truck driver in America, is an independent worker – someone who takes on projects or jobs from different clients, relatively free from the clients’ control.
Give Gig Workers A Real Break
November 18, 2022 // Polling data also back the idea that most gig workers want to be gig workers. In “Independent Work,” Ilana Blumsack and Scott Lincicome cite a finding that about 90 percent of survey respondents “were happier in independent work than in traditional jobs.” Only 11 percent wanted to find full-time traditional employment.
Independent Contracting – Proposed Department of Labor Rule
October 19, 2022 // The Biden Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a new independent contractor rule on October 11, 2022 to address what Secretary Walsh deems “misclassification” of workers. This would replace a current DOL rule from the Trump administration that went into effect in March 2021 – a rule which the Biden administration improperly attempted to rescind that provided clarity to the “economic realities” test used to determine the employment status of workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
This fresh blow to newspapers — and our democracy — must be stopped | Editorial
October 4, 2022 // For nearly two centuries, and across the country, the job has been done by contractors who are not classified as employees of the newspapers. But now the state Department of Labor is strictly enforcing a law that’s been on the books since the FDR era, upending tradition by ordering these workers to be treated as employees. That means newspapers, or the firms they hire to handle delivery, would have to pay taxes to cover benefits like unemployment and disability, just as they do for full-time employees. It would cost the Star-Ledger, already diminished by layoffs and buyouts, about $3 million a year. The state’s intentions are good, even if its swing is a bit wild. This is part of a movement, mostly in progressive states, to combat the spread of abuses related to contract work. It was inspired first by the growing use of lower-paid contract workers on constructions sites, many of them working full-time and standing shoulder to shoulder with regular employees. And contract work has exploded in the gig economy, at companies like Uber and Grubhub.
Rideshare, retailers brace for tough U.S. independent contractor rule
September 28, 2022 // The meetings at the White House were one-sided, with officials at OIRA letting groups speak and not participating or asking follow-up questions, several employer sources said. They are interpreting that as a sign the Biden administration's mind is made up. Some of the groups have been trying, and failing, to convince the White House that any broad rule would hurt workers who want to remain independent and have flexibility...More than one-third of U.S. workers, or nearly 60 million people, performed some sort of freelance work.