'Substantial Negative Impact'
Three state senators—all Democrats and committee chairmen—have big concerns about New Jersey's proposed independent-contractor rule.
Everybody, hold onto something.
Several high-ranking Democrats in New Jersey just made clear to the state’s labor commissioner, in writing, that legitimate independent contractors need protection.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Democrats are standing up for independent contractors in New Jersey.
On June 4, three of New Jersey’s state senators—Labor Committee Chairman Gordon Johnson, Legislative Oversight Committee Chairman Andrew Zwicker, and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Lagana—sent this letter to New Jersey Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo:
The fact that this letter exists—and that it was sent to the administration of Democrat Governor Phil Murphy after being written by three high-ranking Democrats in the state Senate—is an amazing development.
In recent years, we have all seen plenty of Republicans stand up for independent contractors. The Republican Party continues to fight hard for us at all levels of government, up to and including the administration of President Trump. Kevin Kiley in particular, has led the charge to help us, first as a California state assemblyman and now as a member of Congress. He is a hero to independent contractors everywhere in trying to stop this freelance-busting madness.
But Democrats, when they have helped us at all, have usually done so behind closed doors. I’ve had high-ranking Democrats who clearly know that freelance busting is wrong ask me not to reveal who they are, for fear of angering the AFL-CIO in particular.
Out in public, it has long been considered blasphemy within the Democratic Party to support the idea of self-employment outside the model of traditional, unionizable jobs—even though the public feels differently by an 80/20 margin. Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona learned this the hard way: He rightfully stood up for independent contractors everywhere against freelance-busting federal legislation, and it cost him the opportunity to become Vice President Harris’ running mate in the 2024 presidential campaign.
All of which is what makes this letter in New Jersey so significant. By writing this letter, these three New Jersey Democrats are performing an act of political courage.
How We Got Here
New Jersey state Senators Johnson, Zwicker and Lagana are—rightfully and with fidelity to all of the constituents they are paid to serve—defying the deeply misguided party line that we have all been force-fed about independent contracting since back in 2019.
It started when California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 5 into law, kicking off the relentless, remorseless wave of freelance busting we’re all still trying to stop nationwide today. Newsom’s claim that this kind of restrictive policy-making would “reduce worker misclassification” quickly made its way across the nation to New Jersey. Here in my home state, Democratic Party leader Steve Sweeney, at the time our Senate president, also insisted that cracking down on independent contracting was “all about protecting the rights of workers” by stopping “misclassification and exploitation.”
This party line climbed as high up as U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Biden administration and the official Democratic Party platform of the Harris-Walz campaign, all in an attempt to spread California’s failed freelance-busting policy nationwide.
Just last month. Democrats were still pushing this party line when I testified before Congress for the second time in two years. I was there to support a bill called the Modern Worker Empowerment Act that Congressman Kiley has introduced to try and protect us. Among the Democrats on the dais that day, some of the faces had changed, but the words were essentially the same as when I was on Capitol Hill in 2023. The party’s opening statement, delivered by Congressman Greg Casar of Texas, was about people being “illegally misclassified as independent contractors.” The party’s closing statement, delivered by Congressman Mark Takano of California, was about how today’s independent contracting careers—including my 22-year career as a freelance writer and editor, working from a laptop computer wherever I please—are undesirable compared to good union manufacturing jobs of the 1950s.
This same nonsense is now coming from the New Jersey Department of Labor, six years after the Democratic Party’s first failed attempt to get everyone in the Garden State to believe that threatening our freedom to be our own bosses is somehow good for us.
In April, when New Jersey Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo proposed the state’s new independent-contractor rule, he yet again parroted the same claim about stopping misclassification:
“The work being done in New Jersey to combat worker misclassification is a testament to our state’s commitment to justice and fairness in the workplace. This rule proposal is a critical step in providing clear, reliable guidance to employers to help them comply with the law and prevent the illegal misclassification of employees.”
Ever since 2019, independent contractors from coast to coast have been calling B.S. on this ploy. Yes, we fully agree, misclassification of employees is wrong and should be dealt with—but threatening the livelihoods of legitimate independent contractors is not the way to do it.
There is so much real-world evidence at this point that the true goal of this policy-making is to harm legitimate independent contractors—that it’s plain and simple freelance busting—that it’s incomprehensible to rational, reasonable people how it’s even still going on.
What’s actually at stake with New Jersey’s proposed independent contractor rule is exactly the kinds of harms we are still seeing inflicted on self-employed Californians. The Deputy U.S. Labor Secretary, just this week, called the California outcome “catastrophic.” This craziness returning to New Jersey after our legislators rightly rejected it a half dozen years ago is about precisely what Johnson, Zwicker and Lagana wrote in their letter: “the substantial negative impact that these regulations may have on thousands of independent business owners who are properly classified.”
It’s actually an estimated 1.7 million of us in New Jersey who earn some or all of our income as independent contractors, and who are in the crosshairs of this Labor Department proposal. But let’s not quibble about those numbers today.
Let us instead celebrate the fact that high-ranking Democrats in New Jersey are, at long last, going against the party line and standing up for what’s right out in the open, on behalf of independent contractors like me all across our state.
Thank you, Senators Johnson, Zwicker and Lagana, for doing the right thing.
I’ll See You on June 23
The New Jersey Department of Labor has scheduled a public hearing about the proposed independent-contractor rule-making. That hearing will start at 10 a.m. on June 23 in Trenton. Details are available here.
I’ve already secured a speaking slot, and I’m aware of numerous other people on our side who are scheduled to speak, too. As the letter from Senators Johnson, Zwicker and Lagana states, there is “extensive public interest” in the harms that Murphy and Asaro-Angelo are trying to inflict on independent contractors, especially based on such questionable “research” and claims.
If you are planning to attend that public hearing, my advice is to arrive in Trenton well before 10 a.m. I’m told that because of new security measures, it can take forever to get inside and make your voice heard. That will be especially true with so many people showing up to make clear why this freelance busting cannot be allowed.
You can also send a written public comment about New Jersey’s proposed rule. Those comments can be filed until August 6. Send yours to david.fish@dol.nj.gov.
And if you live in the districts that New Jersey state Senators Johnson, Zwicker and Lagana represent, please take a moment to thank them for trying to help stop this insanity.
Those of us who earn some or all of our income through self-employment continue to need all the help we can get to protect everyone’s fundamental freedom to earn a living.