Posts tagged Phil Murphy
New Jersey: Kim Kavin: Carveout Chaos Ahead
October 2, 2026 // Anderson is the founder of Freelancers Against AB5, the leading advocacy group in California that is still trying to figure out how to get that state’s ABC Test law repealed. She is currently a Future of Work Fellow with the Institute for the American Worker in Washington, D.C., an excellent program about labor and employment policy that I completed earlier this year. And, Anderson and I both testified before Congress on this issue in 2023, when her testimony included the following passage, some three years after California’s ABC Test law and a cleanup bill that followed it had gone into effect:
NJBIA: Latest Independent Contractor Carve-Out Bill Highlights Fatal Flaws of New ABC Test
September 15, 2026 // The rule, strongly opposed by NJBIA, New Jersey's business community, New Jersey freelancers and legislators from both sides of the aisle, has been paused until Oct. 1 to give NJDOL and lawmakers time to work out any needed statutory changes. But as there are only 16 days left until the rule takes effect and no statutory changes have been made, NJBIA has launched a grassroots campaign to urge Gov. Mikie Sherrill to delay the implementation of the rule until July 1, 2027. Further, Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D-22) has also formally requested the Sherrill administration to pause the rule.
New Jersey Revives the Fight To Reclassify Gig Workers as Employees
August 18, 2026 // All of these laws are designed to apply employee-style rules to gig workers, even if broad reclassification had failed to take off legislatively across the country. Yet recent rule making from the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development shows that stringent ABC tests are unfortunately far from dead.
They cleaned N.J. schools during COVID and got extra pay. The court just took it away.
August 11, 2026 // The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the East Orange Board of Education did not have to pay the custodians more than double their regular salary for working while schools were closed to students.
Kim Kavin: ‘Severely Broken’
July 9, 2026 // New Jersey lawmakers should begin by passing ACR73 and SCR62. These concurrent resolutions, already introduced in the state Senate and Assembly, would declare the new independent-contractor rule inconsistent with legislative intent and would invalidate it. That’s the quick fix to stop the very real threat that is causing even some of the highest-earning professions to seek carveout protections before the rule takes effect October 1.
Federal lawsuit challenges New Jersey’s discriminatory hiring mandates and forced union speech requirements
May 3, 2026 // Contractors who do not meet the race- and sex-based hiring goals must either enter a referral agreement with a union—obtaining assurances that the union will supply the required minority workers—or complete 25 separate compliance actions. This structure pressures contractors to work through state-favored unions even though their employees chose Earle precisely because of its open-shop structure. The Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause explicitly forbids race- and sex-based classifications.
NEW JERSEY: NJBIA Urges Sherrill Administration to Not Adopt Independent Contractor Rule
April 29, 2026 // Further, in data highlighted in Extremism and Entrepreneurism, a 98-page report from Freelance Busting founder Kim Kavin, there is already empirical research by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University showing that New Jersey’s ABC test applications have already resulted in the following from 1995-2024: a 3.81% decrease in W-2 employment a 10.08% decrease in self-employment a 3.95% decrease in overall employment a 7.40% decrease in women’s W-2 employment Kavin’s report also found evidence suggesting the underlying claim by labor groups to restrict independent contracting in New Jersey was based “largely on mischaracterized data and research.”
Freelance Busting: The ABC Test Defense
April 22, 2026 // And perhaps most important, according to all of the oral testimony and thousands of written public comments submitted to New Jersey’s Labor Department, there are zero people being unknowingly classified as independent contractors. You can download and read here the eight (yes, only eight out of about 9,500) public comments that individuals supporting the proposed rule change filed. Not a single one of them says the person was unknowingly working as an independent contractor.
Commentary: Four Lies And A Truth
April 1, 2026 // The New Jersey AFL-CIO dropped some real whoppers in an email to state legislators about independent-contractor policy.
Kim Kavin Commentary: It’s Not There
January 22, 2026 // New Jersey's Office of Administrative Law confirms that Governor Murphy's independent-contractor rule is not adopted, as Governor Sherrill takes over.