Posts tagged flexible work
Biden claims to stand for women, but his new regulation will kill jobs that women want
March 30, 2024 // Patrice Onwuka, director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at the Independent Women’s Forum, is extremely concerned about how Biden’s rule will affect women. Jennifer Oliver O’Connell, a visiting fellow at the Independent Women's Forum, is a small business owner and independent contractor who learned firsthand about how government intrusion into this realm is harmful.
OPINION These new government contracting rules will put parents, caregivers, seniors out of work
March 12, 2024 // Many independent contractors we have engaged quit full-time positions to become caregivers. They sought opportunities like what we offer to stay engaged in their fields, have an intellectual outlet, and enjoy camaraderie with colleagues, while contributing to the family finances. They don’t want the pressure of short-term deadlines and in-person meetings; they don’t want to have to track time and explain about sick kids or field trips. Can we continue to offer these work relationships? Maybe, although the guidance that contractors cannot "perform similar work of employees" makes it fraught.
Op-ed: Congress tries to destroy working women’s flexibility
March 12, 2024 // Flexibility is valued by all workers, but more so for women. Women are more likely than men to prioritize hours and job location. A clear gender gap exists between men and women over compensation preferences: Women are flexibility maximizers, and men are pay maximizers. For millions of women, a W-2 job, even if hybrid or fully remote, cannot provide the level of flexibility they need to balance priorities such as raising children, managing a disability or illness, or caring for an aging parent. Consequently, over half of the nation’s 70 million-plus freelancers are women.
Ranking Member Cassidy, Kiley Introduce CRA to Overturn New Biden Regulation Threatening 27 Million American Independent Contractors
March 6, 2024 // Independent contractors, or freelancers, make their own hours to fit their schedule and decide where and how they want to work. The Biden administration rule attempts to restrict the ability of American workers to be an independent contractor and take advantage of the flexibility it provides. The rule creates a non-exhaustive, six-factor litmus test for unelected bureaucrats to interpret and decide who is and who is not classified as an independent contractor. It also casts as large a net as possible and gives less legal certainty to independent contractors impacted by the regulation. “The Biden administration’s priority should not be to do whatever makes it easier to forcibly and coercively unionize workers. It should be to increase individual freedom and opportunity,” said Dr. Cassidy. “This new Biden rule does the opposite, jeopardizing 27 million workers’ ability to make their own hours and make a living without being pressured into joining a union.”
Kiley, Cassidy Introduce CRA to Overturn New Biden Regulation Threatening 27 Million American Independent Contractors
March 6, 2024 // “Independent contractors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses are fed up with the Department of Labor continually breathing down their necks,” said Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chairwoman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. “The bicameral Congressional Review Act resolution led by Representative Kiley and Senator Cassidy offers Congress the opportunity to take a unified stand against the Department’s thirst for more government control over America’s workforce. Entrepreneurial opportunities and flexibility should be encouraged, not extinguished with heavy-handed mandates from the federal government.” “Gavin Newsom and Julie Su’s AB 5 severely restricted independent contracting in California, destroying thousands of livelihoods and harming California’s economy. As Acting Secretary of Labor, Su and the Biden Administration have announced a new Department of Labor rule, modeled after on the same job-killing AB 5 that will cost millions of independent professionals across the country their livelihoods while restricting the freedom of many millions more to have flexible work arrangements. Our legislation under the Congressional Review Act nullifies this terrible regulation and protects independent contractors,” said Representative Kiley. “Washington should support workers, not regulate them into oblivion.”
Independent Work Offers Hope for Financial Security for Women 50+
March 5, 2024 // “I have friends who are struggling in retirement because they lost good jobs at age 50 and could never find another career position despite years of job searching.” A 2017 field study bears this out. Conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the study revealed a 47% lower callback rate for older female applicants than young female applicants aged 29 to 31 years. For sales jobs, the callback rate was 36% lower for older female applicants. Because independent contracting is vital to keeping pre-retirement women attached to the workforce, it defies logic that legislators insist on stifling the very independent career opportunities that help these women supplement their income, stay active, and maintain a sense of purpose.
Biden’s war on work undermines the American dream
February 6, 2024 // Biden’s Labor Department rule pursues the same goals as AB 5 and would put the monthly incomes of tens of millions of people — disproportionately women (especially mothers) and minorities — at risk.
California’s Attack on Gig Work Predictably Drove Workers Out of Jobs
January 19, 2024 // Last week, the DOL announced a new set of rules for determining whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. Like with California's A.B. 5, those proposed federal rules are meant to crack down on what the government sees as a deliberate effort to misclassify workers as contractors—which can change, among other things, the benefits that an employer is obligated to pay. Most gig workers and independent contractors are content with their more flexible, less structured employment arrangements—so in some sense, these governmental efforts seem to be trying to save workers from their own choices.
How the Administration’s Overtime Rule Could Cost Workers More Than They Gain—Including Flexibility and Income Security
December 20, 2023 // The Biden Administration’s proposed 69 percent increase in the overtime-salary threshold would significantly affect millions of American workers and employers. While intended to increase the pay of some workers, the proposed overtime rule would almost certainly impose significantly higher costs than benefits, including higher prices for consumers, lower family incomes, and reduced overall employment. Instead of higher pay, workers could get reduced hours, irregular schedules and paychecks, a loss of workplace benefits, and the end of flexible and remote-work opportunities. These consequences will disproportionately affect workers in lower-cost areas, as well as female, black, and Hispanic workers. Instead of imposing costly new regulations, Congress should enact policies that open doors to rising incomes and flexible work opportunities.
Will Biden Labor Nominee Julie Su Suffocate the Gig Economy?
October 13, 2023 // Su, and other progressives like Federal Trade Commissioner Lina Khan, want to force a 20th century model of a heavily regulated and controlled labor market on the 21st century gig economy. They also want to impose 20th century style trade unionism, replete with mandatory union dues that (coincidentally I am sure) can in part be used to support progressive candidates and causes in the gig workforce. This is one reason why a bipartisan majority of the Senate is right to oppose Su’s nomination, and why President Biden was wrong to nominate her as Labor Secretary, and certainly wrong to defy the will of the Senate by keeping her as acting Secretary for an indefinite period of time. Biden should pick a new nominee. While no one nominated by Biden will support a free-market labor policy, the nominee should at least understand that massive federal regulations on the labor markets and compulsory unionism are relics that do not fit the economy of the future.