I think I sent an objection to the new rules a while ago, but I can’t find it, so I sent this yesterday (.
“Ten percent of the US workforce works full-time as independent contractors. Another 20 percent works part-time, whether to supplement low-income employee jobs or because they have responsibilities or disabilities that don't allow them to take full-time work. New Jersey’s workforce is likely to have a similar breakdown; the state should support such a large portion of its workforce, not restrict it. Instead, your proposed ABC test and accompanying rules explicitly aim at strangling self-employment. If you’re successful, you could put most independent workers out of work entirely, with catastrophic effect on families and local economies.
The most dangerous of the test’s rules is prong B. It bans us independent contractors from working in our employers’ core activities, but that’s exactly where our employers need us to work. Put starkly, prong B will end the use of many independent contractors in NJ. We’re necessary. We’re engineers, architects, project managers, retail and wholesale consultants, internet designers, writers and artists, researchers. We provide critical expertise employers need for a short time, expertise they can’t survive without. Preventing us from working hurts your employers and your state’s economy as much as it hurts us. Your proposal undermines NJ employers’ chance of success; it dares them to succeed in spite of you.
The factors you propose as guidance for regulators in implementing your rules are equally distressing. They do the opposite of what you say you intend. Your lists of factors replicate the worst features of bureaucratic regulations by providing countless ambiguities in how agencies and stakeholders can meet the rules. Ambiguities like yours are widely known to confuse regulators and give unscrupulous employers numerous loopholes to escape regulation. They’re typical of why the ABC test was devised in the first place and why it has been adopted in other ways across the country (the test is used primarily to determine eligibility for a single benefit, usually unemployment, but not for overall employment status as you’re doing). What’s more, your recommendations on using the factors make no sense. The factors are described as helping courts and regulatory agencies determine workers’ status, but you forbid those same courts and agencies from using the factors to determine status. What?!
Simply put, your confusing implimentation of the ABC test is just plain wrong. It will make NJ as much of an embarassment as California is. Contrary to what’s commonly thought, that state’s embarassment didn’t flow from its approach to misclassification. Wage workers in California had already been deemed employees before the ABC test was adopted. Rather, the embarassment resulted from applying the ABC test across the full range of workers employed as independent contractors, just as you’re doing here. Your approach is equally flawed and will likely damage NJ’s reputation as much as California’s has been.
Why NJ won’t be more reasonable about independent contractors and other independent workers is beyond me. I understand why unions are hostile towards us. We take their jobs sometimes and they have no answer to that. It's a serious problem for them, but it's a problem they could solve themselves by adopting a more liberal understanding of solidarity. We’re workers too, and we’ve shown we’ll join with unions in coalitions. I myself am in a CWA union that even has a unit for independent workers. There are other approaches, as well, such as making independent workers eligible for the same basic worker benefits as employees. States jealously guard the benefits for no good reason that I can see. This confuses and demoralizes workers, forces regulators to be gatekeepers instead of facilitators, unnecessarily increases the risk of working independently, and causes most misclassification snafus. Just give us the benefits and make the great majority of misclassification problems go away.
All in all, attacking us is going in the wrong direction. New Jersey is wrong to do it, hurting us and its economy by doing it.”
Let me start by saying that we appreciate what you are doing for all independent contractors in nj. Am an independent trucker myself . What do you think is going to happened at the end
Based on what numerous law firms have already written publicly, I think this is a very problematic proposal from NJDOL that would likely go down in the courts if it is actually implemented. In addition to that, it is seeing increasing opposition from leadership in the state Senate. I hope that yesterday's public hearing--as well as the written public comments that will be filed between now and early August--will convince NJDOL that it needs to rescind this proposal entirely.
You go, Kim!
I think I sent an objection to the new rules a while ago, but I can’t find it, so I sent this yesterday (.
“Ten percent of the US workforce works full-time as independent contractors. Another 20 percent works part-time, whether to supplement low-income employee jobs or because they have responsibilities or disabilities that don't allow them to take full-time work. New Jersey’s workforce is likely to have a similar breakdown; the state should support such a large portion of its workforce, not restrict it. Instead, your proposed ABC test and accompanying rules explicitly aim at strangling self-employment. If you’re successful, you could put most independent workers out of work entirely, with catastrophic effect on families and local economies.
The most dangerous of the test’s rules is prong B. It bans us independent contractors from working in our employers’ core activities, but that’s exactly where our employers need us to work. Put starkly, prong B will end the use of many independent contractors in NJ. We’re necessary. We’re engineers, architects, project managers, retail and wholesale consultants, internet designers, writers and artists, researchers. We provide critical expertise employers need for a short time, expertise they can’t survive without. Preventing us from working hurts your employers and your state’s economy as much as it hurts us. Your proposal undermines NJ employers’ chance of success; it dares them to succeed in spite of you.
The factors you propose as guidance for regulators in implementing your rules are equally distressing. They do the opposite of what you say you intend. Your lists of factors replicate the worst features of bureaucratic regulations by providing countless ambiguities in how agencies and stakeholders can meet the rules. Ambiguities like yours are widely known to confuse regulators and give unscrupulous employers numerous loopholes to escape regulation. They’re typical of why the ABC test was devised in the first place and why it has been adopted in other ways across the country (the test is used primarily to determine eligibility for a single benefit, usually unemployment, but not for overall employment status as you’re doing). What’s more, your recommendations on using the factors make no sense. The factors are described as helping courts and regulatory agencies determine workers’ status, but you forbid those same courts and agencies from using the factors to determine status. What?!
Simply put, your confusing implimentation of the ABC test is just plain wrong. It will make NJ as much of an embarassment as California is. Contrary to what’s commonly thought, that state’s embarassment didn’t flow from its approach to misclassification. Wage workers in California had already been deemed employees before the ABC test was adopted. Rather, the embarassment resulted from applying the ABC test across the full range of workers employed as independent contractors, just as you’re doing here. Your approach is equally flawed and will likely damage NJ’s reputation as much as California’s has been.
Why NJ won’t be more reasonable about independent contractors and other independent workers is beyond me. I understand why unions are hostile towards us. We take their jobs sometimes and they have no answer to that. It's a serious problem for them, but it's a problem they could solve themselves by adopting a more liberal understanding of solidarity. We’re workers too, and we’ve shown we’ll join with unions in coalitions. I myself am in a CWA union that even has a unit for independent workers. There are other approaches, as well, such as making independent workers eligible for the same basic worker benefits as employees. States jealously guard the benefits for no good reason that I can see. This confuses and demoralizes workers, forces regulators to be gatekeepers instead of facilitators, unnecessarily increases the risk of working independently, and causes most misclassification snafus. Just give us the benefits and make the great majority of misclassification problems go away.
All in all, attacking us is going in the wrong direction. New Jersey is wrong to do it, hurting us and its economy by doing it.”
Thank you for taking action!
Let me start by saying that we appreciate what you are doing for all independent contractors in nj. Am an independent trucker myself . What do you think is going to happened at the end
Based on what numerous law firms have already written publicly, I think this is a very problematic proposal from NJDOL that would likely go down in the courts if it is actually implemented. In addition to that, it is seeing increasing opposition from leadership in the state Senate. I hope that yesterday's public hearing--as well as the written public comments that will be filed between now and early August--will convince NJDOL that it needs to rescind this proposal entirely.