I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff since 2019 as a grassroots advocate trying to stop freelance busting. Just in this past year or so, I’ve seen the unionists who want to reclassify independent contractors like me argue that regulators should consider attorneys and landscapers to be in the same usual course of business. I’ve seen them say it’s urgent for us to change our laws today because of research done back in 1984. I’ve even seen them describe independent contractors as a problem on par with human trafficking, child labor and workplace violence.
All of which is why the testimony I heard several witnesses give yesterday at a public hearing in my home state of New Jersey felt so upside down, it nearly knocked me out of my chair.
The New Jersey Assembly Labor Committee took testimony on Assembly Bill 4735, which would protect amateur sports officials—and only amateur sports officials—from the state’s looming ABC Test rule that is scheduled to take effect October 1. This rulemaking threatens the incomes and careers of an estimated 1.7 million independent contractors across hundreds of professions, which is why the public comment process revealed 99% opposition to it. The administration of Governor Mikie Sherrill finalized the rule anyway, and now, various lawmakers are putting forward carveout bills, trying to save a handful of favored professions from it.
That’s what Assembly Bill 4735 is: a carveout bill. It explicitly describes the ABC Test regulatory language and then states:
“This bill provides that regardless of the statutory definition or regulatory interpretation of the ‘ABC’ test, amateur sports officials will not be considered employees under State law. “
So, given what this bill is, I fully expected yesterday’s hearing to include what we’ve seen at other carveout-bill hearings in Trenton: union representatives testifying that absolutely no professions should be exempted or have their livelihoods protected from the ABC Test rule in New Jersey. Unionists want as many of us reclassified as possible, because unlike independent contractors, employees can be unionized.
But much to my surprise, something different happened yesterday.
The first witness sat down at the mic—and turned out to be a union president arguing in favor of keeping amateur sports officials as independent contractors.
New Jersey Assemblyman Anthony Angelozzi, a Democrat from Medford, also serves as president of the NJEA-affiliated Hammonton Education Association. He described in great detail how he wants this carveout bill to pass so he can save his wife’s side hustle to her teaching job.
His wife appears to be the union’s vice president. Her side hustle as an independent contractor, Assemblyman Angelozzi testified, is helping the couple pay for their daughter’s college expenses.
He told the committee:
“When my wife and the thousands of sports officials across New Jersey take the field, they are not looking for a traditional W-2 job. They choose when and where they work, which leagues they serve, and how many games they accept. This level of control allows my wife to step back during busy seasons, to focus on our family, and she can take on extra games when her calendar clears up. Referees across our state, whether they are teachers, whether they are nurses, retirees, stay-at-home parents—all of these people depend on this exact level of flexibility to balance officiating with their full-time lives.”
Listen to his four-minute testimony for yourself:
So, yes, that testimony from a union president was unexpected.
Then the second witness sat down to argue in favor of protecting amateur sports officials’ independent-contractor status—and opened with the fact that he’s a retired member of the Teamsters union.
The Retired Teamster
Yes, you read that last bit correctly, as well: Witness No. 2 at yesterday’s hearing in Trenton described himself as a retired Teamster. I didn’t catch his name, but his testimony included this:
“I am a retired Teamster union truck driver. I delivered throughout the Garden State for 30 years. When I retired, I became an umpire, not to have a job, but just to basically umpire high school sports. I enjoy the game, and that's why I do it. I do not do this and look at it as a job. I will tell you why the bill is important: that I don't need a boss.”
Here is the retired Teamster’s two-minute testimony in full:
I know, what happened yesterday in Trenton is a lot to process for all of us independent contractors who have learned again and again over the years that everyone involved with unions will testify against us. Unionists and their multimillion-dollar nonprofit allies are pretty much the only people who support the State of New Jersey’s independent-contractor rule that is causing so much consternation for us all in the first place.
Apparently, what happened yesterday in Trenton was a bit much for the New Jersey AFL-CIO to process, too. After all the amateur sports officials, including the union brothers, testified one after the next that forcing them to become employees would harm not only their avocation, but also youth sports across the state, Eric Richard of the New Jersey AFL-CIO didn’t sit down at the mic to testify at all.
He did submit a slip noting for the record that the New Jersey AFL-CIO opposes the carveout bill, but I guess he didn’t want to risk round two of a legislator on the dais questioning the AFL-CIO’s claims about how many of us independent contractors are really misclassified in the first place.
The Father with the Sick Baby Girl
By far, the most heart-wrenching testimony I heard at yesterday’s hearing in Trenton was the father of a daughter he called his “baby girl,” who has a rare seizure disorder.
I didn’t hear the name of this man, who said he is from Franklinville, but his testimony reminded me of what a Spanish-speaking truck driver told the New Jersey Senate Labor Committee—through an interpreter and tears—back in 2019 about how she became an independent contractor because as an employee, her boss wouldn’t give her time off to take her sick child to the doctor.
Here is the full three-minute testimony from the father who was a witness at yesterday’s hearing, where he talked about how he, too, has lost traditional jobs because he wanted to be present for his disabled daughter at the hospital:
What that man said at the end of his testimony about how this independent-contractor rule will make life even less affordable for lower- and middle-class people is also important.
Governor Sherrill has made improving affordability a top priority of her first term in office. I have yet to hear any testimony about her administration’s independent-contractor rule, from any profession, that suggests her Labor Department’s ABC Test rulemaking will do anything but make all of our lives more expensive.
A Few Other Takeaways
There were a few other moments at yesterday’s hearing that I found noteworthy, including testimony that for at least two years now, the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development has been targeting amateur sports officials for reclassification as unionizable employees. One of the witnesses explained that they’ve tried to reason with the Labor Department, but they can’t get anywhere, and they need this legislation to make the Department back off.
Also notable yesterday was that Assembly Labor Committee Chairman Anthony Verrelli, a Democrat, seems to share the opinion of the New Jersey AFL-CIO that nothing really changes if you reclassify an independent contractor into employee status. He repeatedly asked what would actually change if these amateur sports officials—many of whom testified about loving the flexibility that being self-employed gave them—simply officiated games as employees.
In asking these questions, Verrelli was nearly parroting verbatim what the New Jersey AFL-CIO wrote in its public comment about the Labor Department’s independent-contractor rule:
“Critics often state that the flexibility of hours and work schedule afforded to workers by independent contractor status would be eliminated if these rules are adopted. That simply is not true. Workers can perform the same exact jobs they currently are performing—including app-based delivery and transportation services—when classified as an employee. There is no prohibition of a worker holding multiple part-time jobs with several companies, performing the same work they do as independent contractors, but filing a W-2 as an employee rather than a 1099 as an independent contractor.”
It seems that Chairman Verrelli is having as much of a problem as the New Jersey AFL-CIO with the concept that having multiple part-time bosses is the opposite of having no boss at all.
Last, yesterday’s hearing made clear that everything I wrote in my submitted testimony was right on the money. In particular, I noted the disproportionate, negative effects on women that economists say New Jersey is already experiencing because of the way the state is applying and interpreting the ABC Test, and I called attention to the sexism we are witnessing in who gets, or doesn’t get, a carveout bill introduced in our Legislature to protect their incomes and careers.
Yesterday’s bill that would protect amateur sports officials—a profession that is 90% to 93% male—came after several other carveout bills were introduced to try and protect financial advisers (67% of whom are male); golf caddies (93% of whom are male); and roadside assistance drivers (95% of whom are male).
Every single person who testified yesterday about wanting to protect amateur sports officials was a man.