Posts tagged ABC test
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.
California: The Lost Report
April 1, 2025 // On December 3, 2020, almost a year after California’s freelance-busting law, Assembly Bill 5, went into effect, the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was created to study AB5’s civil rights implications. The committee’s officially designated term ended December 4, 2024. There were hours and hours of testimony, much of it recorded on video. But the committee never issued a report based on all this testimony its members heard. Members of the committee say they were told that if they issued individual statements in the absence of any committee report, they would be failing to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the rules of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Opinion: Congress Must Oppose Big Labor’s “PRO Act” Power Grab
March 14, 2025 // In the 2024 election cycle, labor unions gave nearly 90 percent of their political donations to Democratic Party candidates. For large unions like the National Education Association (NEA), as much as 99 percent of political donations went to Democrats. The PRO Act is a return on investment for the hundreds of millions of dollars that union bosses continue to pour into Democrat coffers.
‘We Are Hopeful’ Q&A with Patrice Onwuka and Kim Kavin
January 24, 2025 // Congress should consider enshrining the Trump-era definition for independent contractors, and/or consider ways to get ahead of the opposition to flexible work. The Employee Rights Act was a federal bill that, among many pro-worker provisions, sought to protect independent contractors as a counter to a national ABC Test in the now-defunct Protecting the Right to Organize Act. Portable benefits also provide a pathway for companies to provide independent contractors with workplace benefits without triggering a reclassification.
New Study: From Gig to Gone? ABC Tests and the Case of the Missing Workers
January 10, 2025 // The introduction of an ABC test caused significant declines in traditional (W-2) employment, self-employment, and overall employment. The ABC test reduced traditional (W-2) employment by 4.73% Self-employment fell by 6.43% Overall employment fell by 4.79% Occupations with high shares of independent contractors experienced the largest reductions in employment. These results suggest that contrary to the intended goal, ABC tests are not altering the composition of workers and leading to more workers becoming traditional W-2 employees, but they are reducing employment for both W-2 employees and self-employed workers.