Posts tagged ABC test
7-Eleven, Franchisees Renew Battle Over What Defines a Worker
July 26, 2023 // The franchisees say a lower court wrongly concluded that they don’t perform services for the company and refused to apply Massachusetts’ “ABC test” for determining whether those who run the stores are employees or independent contractors, contradicting a 2022 state high court answer to a certified question earlier in the suit’s judicial odyssey. The c-store chain urges the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to leave the lower court’s decision in place. The lawsuit, 7-Eleven’s lawyers said in their appellate brief, is an attempt to turn the state’s independent contractor law “into something it was never intended to be—a tool for business owners, like Plaintiffs, to recover as ‘damages’ three times the value of their business’s operating expenses, including their payroll and the fees they pay for their franchise rights.”
Commentary: How Much Longer Will Democrats Support the PRO Act?
June 29, 2023 // When the act was introduced in 2019 and 2021, I voted against it both times. Members should not be fooled by the so-called pro-worker rhetoric that has accompanied the PRO Act. You can be pro-worker without hitching your wagon to a poisonous bill that advances an ideological attack on small business owners. So next time your sink backs up or your chimney needs sweeping, think of the PRO Act and those who are pushing it.
In Advance of Senate HELP Markup, AFP Leads Coalition Urging Senators to Reject PRO Act
June 21, 2023 // Instead of supporting these bills that prioritize top-down government mandates and the preferences of union leadership over the needs of America’s workers, we call on lawmakers to defend and expand choice and flexibility for workers so that they are best able to address the challenges of and maximize opportunities in the 21st century economy. We strongly urge you to reject the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, the Healthy Families Act, and the Paycheck Fairness Act, and we look forward to working with you to pursue a path forward that puts workers, not special interests, first.
California Independent Contractor Law Faces Withering Attacks
June 16, 2023 //
OPINION: Sen. Sinema Shouldn’t Let Julie Su Turn Ariz. Into Calif.
June 5, 2023 // More than one million freelance workers lost work in the wake of AB5’s passage. In response to public outrage, the California legislature carved out scores of politically connected professions from the draconian legislation so that it no longer applied to musicians, translators, writers, photographers, and many others. But big labor’s main targets – independent truckers and the gig economy – are still suffering from AB5’s harsh policy. Even the notoriously left-leaning Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has suggested that AB5’s sponsors and enforcers may have had no legitimate policy objectives in mind when granting exemptions to AB5, and instead acted out of "animus" by targeting companies that facilitate vast swaths of independent contracting.
Reclassifiying Rhode Island’s independent workforce could cost the state millions
May 25, 2023 // Actual instances of misclassification are already addressed by existing laws. And if workers desire to obtain benefits, health care, or otherwise, they need not be traditional employees to do so. To prevent forced misclassification in Rhode Island, lawmakers should propose reforms like portable benefits to allow workers to maintain their independence yet apply for benefits as needed. Utah just pioneered this reform to allow worker benefits to follow workers, not employers. With a portable benefits system in place, forced reclassification efforts like SB 430 can be defeated. As of December 2022, 27 percent — or 85,116 self-employed gig workers — of Rhode Island’s small business workforce engages in independent contract work. That should be celebrated, not undone by misguided policymaking that seeks to correct a non-problem.
Op-ed: GROVER NORQUIST: Biden’s Radical Labor Nominee Wants To Raise Your Taxes
May 22, 2023 // As California Labor Secretary, Su was tasked with overseeing the distribution of tens of billions of dollars in unemployment insurance payments during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the process, Su stripped the program of commonsense safeguards and wasted up to a staggering $31 billion on fraudulent payments. That’s about $1300 per income tax filer in the state. To further contextualize the unprecedented scale of this failure, the entire FY2024 budget request for the U.S. Department of Labor was $15.1 billion. Julie Su squandered more than twice this amount of taxpayer money on fraud in a single program in a single state. Americans should rightfully worry about the impact on their own pocketbooks if Su is given an undeserved promotion to oversee operations in all fifty states.
Senate panel advances Biden Labor nominee Julie Su
April 26, 2023 // “Today’s party-line vote is another reminder that Julie Su is no Marty Walsh, who advanced in a bipartisan 18-4 vote only two years ago,” said Michael Layman, a top lobbyist at the International Franchise Association, in a statement following Wednesday’s vote. The AFL-CIO is fighting back, running ads in Arizona and D.C. backing Su’s efforts to counter wage theft in California. The ads tell viewers that workers are “tired of getting ripped off by big corporations.” The labor federation is also mobilizing its members to lobby senators. “We’re going to defend Julie against these baseless corporate special interests attacks,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told reporters last week. “Every senator, especially those that haven’t yet said that they’ll vote yes, needs to be aware of how much this confirmation means to working people’s lives.”
Gig Worker Qualifies as an Employee, California District Court Concludes
April 25, 2023 // The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on March 30 that the driver should be classified as an employee who is entitled to overtime pay and minimum wage protections under state law. The court ruling is "more of a warning shot to show the consequences of failing to comply" with state rules on employee classification, said Bryan Hawkins, an attorney with Stoel Rives in Sacramento. Theane Evangelis, an attorney with Gibson Dunn in Los Angeles who represented Grubhub, said, "We disagree with the court's ruling and are considering our legal options. Thanks to Proposition 22—which California voters overwhelmingly enacted and the California Court of Appeal recently upheld—drivers who use the Grubhub app will continue to enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working as independent contractors."
What is the Employee Rights Act, and how would it advance worker freedom?
April 21, 2023 // Unlike the PRO Act – which, imbued with a dated and rigid workplace vision that is increasingly displacing American workers – the ERA would empower workers to seize more opportunity and take greater control of their futures.