I’ve been combing through the more than three hours of testimony from last week’s public hearing in New Jersey, where a standing-room-only crowd was overwhelmingly opposed to the state’s latest attempt at freelance busting.
The 30,000-word transcript is filled with so much outrage, the quotes in the video above that I made barely scratch the surface. People were so deeply frustrated, the righteous anger just kept on coming:
“massive confusion”
“chilling effect on businesses”
“New Jersey’s war on entrepreneurs”
“contrary to federal law”
“intentional harm”
“inexcusable”
“overly aggressive”
“forcibly misclassify legitimately self-employed individuals”
“shortages of critical life-saving supplies”
“a gut punch to consumers”
“irreparable harm”
“harms the very people it’s meant to protect”
“a tragedy”
“a horrible mistake”
“dramatic negative impact”
“completely unconnected to the reality of how the independent professionals work”
“not legally permissible”
“chase entire industries out of the Garden State”
“introduces novel forms of control”
“impractical in today’s economy”
“could create a presumption that all franchisees are misclassified employees”
“disproportionately harms vulnerable populations”
“mischaracterizes how technology works”
“would move us backwards, not forwards”
“disruptive and anti-consumer”
“wholly disregards the realities of workers in New Jersey”
“a serious threat to New Jersey’s economy”
“That’s not how this state’s laws work or should work.”
It’s important for everyone to understand what all this outrage is about. Yes, we’re fighting a proposed rule that would currently only affect the Garden State, but the outcome of this battle will matter to independent contractors all across the country.
‘Novel and Highly Selective’
The freelance-busting road show that targets independent contractors in hundreds of professions has been moving for years all around the country: to California in 2019-20 with Assembly Bill 5, to New Jersey with a copycat bill that failed in our Legislature, to New York with another copycat bill that went nowhere, through the U.S. Department of Labor, into the halls of Congress—where they’re still trying today to pass an anti-independent-contractor bill—and now, once again, back to New Jersey with state Labor Department rule-making.
At every turn, these freelance busters try to tweak the regulatory language, edit the interpretations of existing language—generally finagle the words on the page in ways that will restrict more and more independent contractors until, finally, we won’t be able to work legally at all.
That’s their goal. And it’s important to understand it as you read what Vince Ryan, regional vice president of the American Council of Life Insurers, testified in New Jersey last week:
“Adopting this novel and highly selective interpretation of the ABC Test would make New Jersey the first state to do so, an outlier, putting it at odds with its neighboring states and creating unnecessary disruption for producers licensed across state lines. No other state in the country has implemented a law or regulation like this.”
If the freelance-busting brigade gets this regulatory language through in New Jersey, they’re going to try to impose it on the entire country next. Just like they took the language they got through in California and have been trying to force versions of it on the whole country ever since.
That’s why those of us here in New Jersey jammed last week’s public hearing from wall to wall in opposition.
That’s why it’s so important for everyone, all across the nation, to fight back.
The deadline to file public comments against New Jersey’s proposed rule is August 6. Email yours today: david.fish@dol.nj.gov.
And if you’re on X, tag your lawmakers as you share the video that I made. You can also tag them as you share the video below, which includes yet more quotes from yet more people who came out in a heat wave and sat through a three-plus-hour hearing to try and stop this madness:
Lawmakers everywhere need to understand the unbelievably high level of public outrage that’s on display right now in New Jersey. We all want to keep self-employment as a legal option for achieving the American dream.
Tell your own representatives that you want them, too, to protect our fundamental freedom to earn a living, no matter where this horrible freelance-busting road show turns up next.
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