Posts tagged Independent Contractor
Businesses Cry Foul on DOL Messaging for Trump Gig Worker Rule
May 8, 2023 // “My discussions with DOL investigators and the solicitor’s office out of Atlanta was exactly the same before the Trump regulations and after the Trump regulations,” McCutchen said. In her interactions with the agency, WHD investigators mentioned and recognized the agency was bound by the Trump rule, but didn’t follow the structure of the Trump test when analyzing whether one of her clients was a contractor or an employee, she said. “They didn’t say, ‘Let’s look at the two core factors,’” she explained, “or, ‘Now we’re going to look at the three additional factors,’ which is the structure of the Trump regulations. They didn’t do that.” The Trump rule has been in place for over two years, and given how it diverged from the Obama-era approach to worker classification, the department should be reaching out to field officers and offering training and guidance, said Michael Lotito, co-chair of Littler Mendelson PC’s Workplace Policy Institute. Simply acknowledging the rule isn’t enough, he added.
Su Squeaks Past Committee on Party Line Vote
April 27, 2023 // According to the California State Auditor, “(D)espite repeated warnings, EDD (under Su) did not bolster its fraud detection efforts until months into the pandemic…(including allowing) claimants to collect benefits even though they were using suspicious addresses—in one case, more than 1,700 claims were coming from a single address.” As to the rate of fraud, California actually realized a rate of about 22% and, while having only about 12% of the nation’s workers, processed 21% of all unemployment claims which, one would assume, should have been seen as a red flag to the EDD.
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."
Michigan: Wage theft package gets first committee hearing
April 14, 2023 // Under HB 4390, an independent contractor is someone who is: a) “free from control and direction of the payer,” b) “performs work that is outside the usual course of the payer’s business,” and c) “is customarily engaged in an independently established trade.” Wendy Block, Senior VP of Business Advocacy and Member Engagement for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, compared the Michigan proposal to California’s independent contractor law. HB 4401 and HB 4406 would make it a felony punishable by up to two years in prison and or a $10,000 fine to refuse to provide that information more than once.
Opinion: Ways Congress can strengthen the trucking workforce
April 5, 2023 // For 90 years, the U.S. economy and supply chain have benefited from the choice of individuals to run their own trucking businesses. More than 90 percent of motor carriers operate six trucks or fewer, many of whom started as independent contractors and continue to choose that business model for themselves.
A Win For California’s App-Based Drivers
March 17, 2023 // In an ironic twist, California Attorney General Rob Bonta argued in favor of Prop. 22 to the Court of Appeals even though he voted for AB5 when he was an assemblyman in the California state legislature and was personally opposed to Prop. 22. The state correctly asserted that the will of the voters should prevail, and the Court of Appeals agreed. Former assemblywoman and author of AB5 cried foul about Monday’s ruling, claiming the “system is broken” and that the appeals court “chose to stand with powerful corporations over working people, allowing companies to buy their way out of our state’s labor laws.” Gonzalez, who now heads the California Labor Federation representing 1,200 unions in the state, has no such concerns about the millions of independent contractors and small businesses adversely affected by her disastrous law. From transcribers and translators to sign-language interpreters, videographers, wedding planners, regional theaters, pharmacists, the independent film industry, and more, AB5 has wielded a wrecking ball to the independent workforce in California, particularly impacting female entrepreneurs who have been disproportionately harmed by the law.
Op-ed: Why Biden’s choice for Labor secretary boggles my mind
March 14, 2023 // California Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, the Democrat who chairs the Accountability and Administrative Review Committee, told the LA Times, "(Su) has done a tremendous job on many different initiatives, but she has not done a good job at running the Employment Development Department and, as a result, has wasted billions of dollars and, more importantly, caused heartache for millions of Californians." Su also championed the drive to hike California’s minimum wage, a move wildly popular with her union allies, but one that poured gasoline on the fire burning in the state’s alleys, boosting retail prices, moving home ownership beyond the reach of even more state residents and forcing businesses to lay off low-skilled workers they could no longer afford to employ.
Video: ALEC’s Labor of Love: A History of Championing Worker Freedom
March 10, 2023 // Today, ALEC debuts its first episode, “Worker Freedom,” in our 50th anniversary video series. The episode features ALEC champions Scott Walker (45th Governor of Wisconsin), Matt Hall (Michigan House Minority Leader and ALEC Board of Directors Member), and Vinnie Vernuccio (Senior Fellow, Mackinac Center), discussing ALEC’s pivotal role in securing Worker Freedom policy wins across the states. In some states, private sector workers can be forced to join, leave, or pay fees to a union as job requirement. The Right-to-Work Act, which ALEC task forces approved as a model policy, provides a solution to this issue. It prevents private employers from requiring or banning union membership (or fees) as conditions for employment, giving workers in Right-to-Work states a guaranteed right to support a union or not to support a union without this choice affecting their hiring or job security.
Biden Wants To Restrict Work and Flexibility for Freelancers
February 20, 2023 // Beyond these misunderstandings, there is a key question that PRO Act proponents have failed to directly answer: Over a dozen surveys—including the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Contingent Worker Supplement—have found that a majority of independent contractors would prefer their current arrangements over an employment arrangement. Workers cite dependent care obligations, personal circumstances, or a strong preference for job flexibility (over job stability) as the primary reasons. Beyond surveys, in a recent study published by the Journal of Political Economy, economists estimated that UberX drivers would require almost twice as much pay to accept the inflexibility that comes from adopting a taxi-style schedule. And for the top 10 percent of DoorDash drivers, losing flexibility is equivalent to a 15 percent pay cut. Sens. Mark Warner (D–Va.), Todd Young (R–Ind.), and Rep. Suzan DelBene (D–Wash.)