Dude, Where's My Hearing?

New Jersey's Labor Department is poised to avoid most of the public at Monday's hearing on independent-contractor policy.

This map showed up in my email inbox yesterday:

It was in a form email that a bunch of us independent contractors received from the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development, thanking us for registering to speak at the public hearing scheduled for this coming Monday about the state’s proposed independent-contractor rule.

This email, it appears, was in part to help us all find the Division of Taxation building where the Department of Labor plans to hold Monday’s hearing—and where, apparently, there is no on-site public parking.

The email also says our testimony will be limited to four minutes each—yes, they bolded it. Can you hear them cutting off our microphones, several days in advance?

And just to make sure expectations are set as low as they might possibly go, the email further advises us that the Department of Labor has no intention of actually responding on Monday to anything we say.

Instead, the email states:

“Department responses to Monday’s spoken comments will occur in the same manner as Department responses to written comments that are received on or before August 6, 2025; which is to say, Department responses will be provided to all comments within the body of the final rulemaking notice, which will be published in the New Jersey Register and posted on the Department’s website.”

In other words, we’ll all get up at oh dark thirty and schlep down to Trenton so we can figure out where to park, and then try to look these people in the eye as we explain why their proposed rule is going to hurt us. After which they may, or may not, respond to us sometime after August by writing something in the New Jersey Register.

Yeah. Really.

This Department’s officials could not be sending any stronger signal that that they don’t want to have a single meaningful conversation with any of New Jersey’s estimated 1.7 million independent contractors about proposed independent-contractor policy.

It’s behavior that is beyond disdainful and outrageous, given that attorneys say this proposal appears “to expand the ABC test and common law on the issue,” would “far exceed” norms, “could make it very difficult for businesses to demonstrate that workers are independent contractors,” and “would not merely tilt the balance in favor of employee status and against legitimate ICs but rather lead to the elimination of all ICs in New Jersey.”

Call me crazy, but it seems as if at least one meaningful conversation with us is in order.

Then again, if I were in the Labor Department’s freelance-busting shoes, I’d be trying to hide, too. The last time the State of New Jersey attempted to threaten our livelihoods in a similar way, lawmakers were visibly pained by the public debate we forced them to have in front of the press, for hours on end.

Back, and to the Left

For a moment yesterday, my primary concern with that map in my inbox was the fact that we’re all going to have to hoof it to the hearing in one of New Jersey’s top five cities for crime. I’ve spoken publicly about how, back in the 1990s, a random guy with a knife got hold of me by attacking me from behind. To this day, whenever I’m in a place like this, I’m looking over my shoulder. Parking garages are unpleasant.

But then, I realized something else about that map. I typed another address into Google Maps, to see just how far this Division of Taxation building is from the New Jersey State House.

Turns out the State House is about a 10-minute walk, if you double back and turn left:

Why does that distance and the time it takes to cover it on foot matter, other than increasing a person’s chances of getting mugged?

It matters a great deal—because every top business-industry lobbyist and government reporter will feel urgency to be at the State House on Monday for the Legislature’s budget negotiations.

What’s happening right now at our State House, as reported two days ago by NJ Spotlight, is a “fog.” It’s do-or-die time for the budget talks, with all kinds of backroom dealings in addition to the Legislature’s calendar showing quorums in both the Senate and Assembly on Monday.

In other words, the State House is going to be where things are hopping in Trenton from 10 a.m. to noon on Monday, when the Department of Labor’s public hearing is scheduled to take place in an entirely other building.

Per that NJ Spotlight article:

“Under New Jersey’s Constitution, the governor proposes an annual budget and certifies revenue forecasts, but it’s lawmakers who have the authority to draft the appropriations bill, as well as any tax legislation needed to support a balanced spending plan.

“If they don’t complete these tasks before the July 1 start of the next fiscal year, the Constitution requires state government to shut down until a balanced spending plan is adopted and signed into law by the governor.”

Talk about a fog that New Jersey’s freelance-busting brigade can put to tactical use in its continuing war on independent contracting.

The budget action at the State House will be great cover for the Labor Department to try and shroud its proposed rule-making, keeping whatever happens at this public hearing in the shadows of bureaucracy’s bowels.

Have Tripod, Will Travel

No doubt, the Department of Labor would like to avoid a repeat of the public spectacle that happened in Trenton back in December 2019, when the State House was the site of a public hearing about independent-contractor legislation that threatened our livelihoods in a similar way.

Reporters described what happened that day in colorful ways. They called it, among other things, “contentious.” The New Jersey Chamber of Commerce noted that discussion of the independent-contractor bill “used up about four hours of a six-hour hearing intended to examine 10 proposed pieces of legislation.” My favorite description was that it was an “epic, contentious and impassioned hearing.”

It was—because we were all outraged by the epically idiotic attempt at freelance busting.

I wrote about that 2019 hearing several years ago, for Reason:

“Linda Greenstein and Joseph Lagana looked pained. The two New Jersey legislators knew their seats on the Labor Committee existed at the pleasure of the state Senate's president, Steve Sweeney, who has a habit of removing his fellow Democrats from powerful positions if he doesn't like their votes. Greenstein and Lagana had one job on December 5, 2019: back a bill that Sweeney had sponsored. And they did that job. But when the moment came to cast their votes and move the bill out of committee, each came close to apologizing.

“The bill, which would have reclassified many independent contractors as traditional salaried employees, was promoted as a way to protect low-wage workers whose companies were cheating them out of salaries and benefits. But Greenstein and Lagana had just spent four hours listening to testimony from working mothers, senior citizens, African Americans, Hispanics, and suburban women—key parts of their party's base—who said the legislation would instead destroy their chosen careers. The standing-room-only crowd that had come to testify against the bill included teachers, writers, bakers, lawyers, musicians, photographers, and truck drivers. It also included me: The bill threatened the stream of freelance writing and editing income I'd spent the past 17 years building.

“‘We heard an amazing—what I consider an amazing—amount of opposition,’ Greenstein told the crowd, adding that the bill was the most confusing she has encountered in her two decades in the New Jersey Legislature. She ultimately voted yes, but she acknowledged for the public record that the legislation needed work: ‘I think that somebody used the term unintended consequences, and it may be that that's what's going on here.’”

That 2019 hearing at the State House wasn’t just jammed with independent contractors. It was also packed with press—which matters, because shining a bright light on the freelance busters is what ultimately gets them to stop this nonsense. Video clips from that hearing played hour after hour on New Jersey’s leading TV news station. Coverage ran in all kinds of media, ultimately helping to stop the bill.

This time around, there’s precious little indication that any press is even following what the Department of Labor is attempting to do. There’s also no indication that the Department’s public hearing will be live-streamed or recorded. The Department does have an active YouTube channel, but a search for “public hearing” and “hearing” brings up nothing about Monday’s scheduled event. And the hearing’s announcement doesn’t say it will be recorded. Neither does yesterday’s email.

So, those of us in attendance—in addition to trying to get all of this proposed rule’s problems into the public record in just four minutes of speaking time apiece—must also be ready to document what’s going on all around us.

I’ll be bringing my tripod that holds a smartphone, so I can at least record my own testimony in strong opposition to this freelance-busting proposal. I’ll happily lend my gear to anybody else on our side who wants to record their testimony, too, and I’ll blast out as much coverage as I can from this Substack and over on my X handle.

The State of New Jersey can do its damnedest to try and restrict our fundamental freedom to earn a living, but independent contractors like me—who make media for a living—are not going to let all of this happen in darkness.