I’m headed to Trenton this morning to testify at a public hearing about my home state’s newly adopted, deeply misguided independent-contractor rule that is scheduled to take effect October 1.
The State House is going to be a madhouse. The New Jersey AFL-CIO put out a bulletin saying that those of us who will be showing up to insist that the Legislature do something to fix this mess are “attacking” the newly adopted rule:
In reality, those of us who will be urging the Legislature to act are the same people who were part of the 99% public opposition to this rule—a rule that pretty much nobody except unionists supported, and that the Sherrill administration finalized in defiance of the clearly expressed will of the people. Governor Sherrill sided with the extremists, not the entrepreneurs. It’s our hope that our legislators will now step in and protect the people they were elected to represent.
I’ll be doing my best to share what’s happening in Trenton today live on my X handle, if you want to follow the proceedings there.
Suffice it to say, there’s probably going to be some yelling.
‘Jersey Thing’
In the meantime, I also just received the video clip above of an appearance I made last week on the NJ101.5 “Jersey Thing” show with host Eric Scott.
This video was taped the morning after New Jersey’s adopted rule dropped, when I was in Washington, D.C., for meetings about federal labor policy and hadn’t yet had a chance to read all the way through the state’s document.
I have since published this article about some of the most notable things I’ve found in New Jersey’s adopted rule, including what’s most clear to me: The Sherrill administration is taking the position that truth and economic consequences are irrelevant when it comes to independent-contractor policymaking.
As host Eric Scott makes clear in this clip, it’s pretty unbelievable that this is happening at all.
