Half-Baked Thoughts and Prayers
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy seems to think only the Almighty can stop his own Labor Department's freelance busting.
A reporter—thank you, NJBIZ—finally got New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on the record about the Department of Labor & Workforce Protection’s proposed independent-contractor rule.
Now, before you read what Murphy said, I want to make sure we’re all clear about the powers he possesses. As governor, he controls the New Jersey Labor Department. How it runs, and what it does, is all part of the Murphy administration. Murphy appointed Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo. Murphy could have told Asaro-Angelo not to propose this independent-contractor rule. Murphy has the power to order Asaro-Angelo to rescind the proposed rule at any time. And if Asaro-Angelo refuses to follow that order, then Murphy has the power to fire him.
Murphy, at any time he likes, can stop this threat to the incomes and careers of an estimated 1.7 million New Jerseyans, including me.
Now, go ahead and read Murphy’s exchange with the reporter from NJBIZ:
“Governor, an issue that’s been getting a lot of attention is this proposed rule change around independent contractors and gig workers. Wanted to get your thoughts on the proposal itself and any reactions to the pushback?”
“It’s in a sort of stakeholder engagement phase right now. And I’m going to probably stand back and allow that process to play out. I know there’s a lot of passion on all sides of this—and I’ve heard it directly myself. But let’s let this play out—and God willing, it’ll land in a good place for workers and for our economy.”
God willing?
You read that correctly. The governor of New Jersey just said our only chance of saving our livelihoods from his administration’s freelance busting is to pray.
Executive Order No. 63
A half dozen years ago, on June 1, 2019, Murphy signed Executive Order 63. It says that state entities shall strive—not should strive, but shall strive—to create a regulatory environment that, among other things, streamlines interaction with the government. It says that state entities should engage with affected communities. It says that state entities should provide opportunities for various groups to work in partnership with the state.
And it specifically states:
“Where a proposed rule is new, or makes significant and/or expansive changes to existing rules, the benefit from extensive stakeholder outreach will be greater.”
The proposed independent-contractor rule more than qualifies as creating significant and expansive changes.
Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle say the proposal directly contradicts the Legislature’s intent, and departs from the existing statute and case law controlling worker classification. Not to mention numerous attorneys who have explained in excruciating detail how the proposal “almost entirely eviscerates” any chance of establishing independent-contractor status, blatantly violates the statute and case law, and poses “an existential threat to flexible, independent work” in a way that could chase whole industries out of the state.
So, you know, maybe there should’ve actually been some of what Executive Order No. 63 describes as “extensive stakeholder outreach” before the state’s Labor Department proposed this rule.
Here’s what happened instead, as I detailed in the 26-page public comment that I wrote and filed on behalf of Fight For Freelancers, the grassroots coalition that I co-founded back in 2019:
“What is not understandable, and what is not excusable, is the Department’s abject failure to include the wishes of independent contractors in rule-making specific to independent contractors. This blatant omission of key stakeholders from the rule-making process flies in the face of Governor Murphy’s own Executive Order No. 63…
“[T]he Department has failed to seek out or engage in meaningful stakeholder outreach with even the most vocal members of Fight For Freelancers that this proposed change would affect. The Department could easily find us, since many of us testified in December 2019 against the similar policymaking attempt by the Legislature. Our names are all in the public record. And the Department was paying attention to that hearing in 2019; the day after it occurred, Asaro-Angelo personally called me at my home in Morris County. He clearly knows how to find me in particular, yet he chose not to do so prior to the Department proposing this independent-contractor rule.
“Instead, the Department did everything in its power to try and ensure that participation by independent contractors in this rule-making process was minimized. The Department failed to allow remote testimony at the public hearing on June 23, 2025, and it limited oral testimony to just four minutes per witness who drove to Trenton and appeared in person that day during a heat wave, sometimes waiting more than three hours amid the standing-room-only crowd to speak.
“The Department’s representative who conducted the public hearing avoided any meaningful engagement with independent contractors who appeared as witnesses. He asked follow-up questions of several witnesses, but no follow-up questions of the numerous independent contractors who testified against the proposal that day.”
That’s my experience being on the receiving end of the Murphy administration’s stakeholder engagement phase.
As for Murphy’s claim that “there’s a lot of passion on all sides of this,” let’s be clear: Testimony at the public hearing was 3-to-1 against this proposed rule. The only—the only—people who testified in favor of this freelance busting were either employed by unions, or affiliated with organizations that have strong union ties.
There were not “all sides” at the public hearing. There were precisely two sides. It was the following unionists versus every single other person who was there:
Eric Richard, legislative director for the New Jersey AFL-CIO
Michael Broderick, president of Teamsters Local 469 and general executive board member of Joint Council 73 for the Teamsters
Bernie Corrigan, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 102
Abby Adams, government affairs director for the Associated Construction Contractors of New Jersey, which represents and promotes the interests of the union construction industry
Debbie White, president of Health Professionals and Allied Employees, the largest health-care union in New Jersey
Jennifer Mancuso of the New Jersey Laborers Union, or LIUNA
Brandon Fishbaum of Carpenter Contractor Trust, which supports union contractors
Paul Prendergast with the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, a council of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America union
Alan Schorr of the National Employment Lawyers Association, whose Washington, D.C. office address is c/o AFL-CIO 815 Black Lives Matter Plaza NW
Joseph Niver of Make the Road New Jersey, whose staff is organized with the United Auto Workers Union 2320
Maya Pinto of the National Employment Law Project, a union-backed think tank, who previously worked at the Service Employees International Union
Jake Barnes of the Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers University, whose stated mission on its homepage includes support for unions
And make no mistake about what’s happening in New Jersey. This union-backed attempt to influence independent-contractor policy is not an aberration.
We’re all being played for chumps in the modern-day version of good old-fashioned road show.
Just as purveyors of genuine cures for whatever ails you used to peddle their potions all across towns and cities in the Old West, today’s freelance-busting brigade has been moving from agency to agency and legislative committee to legislative committee at the state and federal levels alike, peddling snake-oil data about independent contractors and exerting undue influence on policymaking.
California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who sponsored the freelance-busting law Assembly Bill 5 out there, was explicit in describing its intent:
In fact, Gonzalez—who has since left the California Legislature to become head of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO—unabashedly acknowledged the AFL-CIO’s role in creating Assembly Bill 5, at the same time that elected officials and their top aides in the New Jersey Legislature were telling independent contractors like me that if we wanted to have a say in this kind of policymaking in our state, then we had to go talk to the AFL-CIO too:
Members of the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which heard hour after hour of testimony about AB5’s harms to independent contractors, detailed how the undue influence of unions continued through AB5’s exemption-granting chaos too.
From their December 2024 report:
“The evidence of the influence of the powerful union lobby on the seismic change in the classification paradigm is clear in the exemption process. The California legislature essentially outsourced the decision-making process for obtaining an exemption from AB5. The result was the politically powerful and those in industries not historical targets of organized labor were more readily able to obtain an exemption.”
The guy who sponsored New Jersey’s version of California-style freelance-busting legislation back in 2019 was Steve Sweeney:
Here’s how a prominent news outlet in New Jersey described Asaro-Angelo when Murphy nominated him to serve as labor commissioner:
Don’t believe it when Murphy says there are “multiple sides of this” policy nightmare. Or when he says that “God willing, it’ll land in a good place for workers and for our economy.”
We all know how this is going to end. It’s going to be exactly what California Governor Gavin Newsom’s former deputy chief of staff described happening out there less than a week after AB5 went into effect:
The only two sides in this freelance-busting nightmare right now in New Jersey are the unionists who have been footing the bill for Murphy’s political campaigns, and all the rest of us whose businesses and livelihoods his administration is intent on destroying.
Intentional Harm
The biggest gut punch about this freelance-busting madness is that it is still happening despite an endless parade of people speaking out and trying to stop it. For years now. In multiple states. On Capitol Hill. In the press. On social media. Everywhere that is humanly possible.
I detailed the past half dozen years of this lunacy in my five-minute opening testimony before the U.S. Senate HELP Committee last month in Washington, D.C:
As I wrote at the end of the Fight For Freelancers public comment that I filed in strong opposition to the proposed independent-contractor rule in New Jersey:
“The harm that this type of anti-independent-contractor policymaking has done, and continues to do, is well-documented. New Jersey’s Legislature rejected this type of policymaking a half dozen years ago with good reason. Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor are moving now to protect independent contractors nationwide from this type of policymaking, given its catastrophic results.
“The 2019 Task Force report that the Department cited when announcing this proposed rule is riddled with questionable claims that require further investigation. The undue influence of labor unions and union-affiliated organizations offering questionable testimony as part of the Department’s rule-making process also creates grounds to call for an investigation of the Department’s actions—especially in the face of such overwhelming public opposition to the Department’s proposal and to this type of policymaking in general.
“Consequences for this type of policymaking were called ‘unintended’ in 2019. That is no longer accurate. With this proposal, the Department intends to harm New Jersey’s independent contractors. The predictable injury to people’s incomes, careers and livelihoods is capricious and inexcusable, as is the predictable psychological harm this may cause for families throughout the Garden State, and the physical harm that may result from people being unable to pay for shelter, food and health care.
“This proposed rule is a direct attack on everyone’s fundamental freedom to earn a living as an entrepreneur, promulgated in remorseless defiance of our nation’s promise of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“For all these reasons, Fight for Freelancers urges the Department to rescind this proposal in full, immediately.”
That last bit is the only thing that Murphy should be saying right now, no matter whether he’s speaking to the press, to his labor commissioner or to anyone else.
Rescind this proposal in full, immediately.
And God willing, let us all hope that whoever wins this fall’s gubernatorial election and appoints a new labor commissioner understands that we are supposed to have a government that is of, by and for all the people, not a government that is of, by and for the labor unions.