With 99% of written comments in opposition to or showing serious concerns about a controversial rule proposal that would drastically reduce the number of independent contractors in the state, NJBIA is restating its call for the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development to drop its misguided bid.
NJDOL posted the written comments on its website late last week. Fight For Freelancers co-founder Kim Kavin, working with several other groups to use hand counts, document searches and artificial intelligence, showed less than 1% of the estimated 8,300 written comments on the 11,688 total pages were in support of the rule.
“While we appreciate NJDOL posting the comments as part of its rule-making process, this overwhelming opposition to such a legally flawed, economically unsound and socially regressive proposal reaffirms the need for the agency to pull it completely,” said NJBIA President and CEO Michele Siekerka.
“There should be no attempts at exemptions of certain groups from this rule, as California unsuccessfully did five years ago, particularly given the wide range of voices in these comments and the uprising of independent contractors everywhere since NJDOL proposed it.
“This is a wholly misguided proposal that is causing great consternation among freelance workers and businesses of all sizes. It needs to be dropped,” Siekerka said.
“These comments are a statewide avalanche of basic common sense across all ages, races, genders and political affiliations,” said Kavin, co-founder of the grassroots, nonpartisan coalition Fight For Freelancers.
“They include truckers and photographers and financial advisers and writers and translators and attorneys and youth sports folks and pediatric care services and nurse anesthetists—the list of threatened professions goes on and on.
“The State of New Jersey needs to rescind this deeply misguided proposal, stop attacking independent contractors, and start treating all of us who work hard for a living with respect,” Kavin said.
Under New Jersey state law, businesses must use a three-prong “ABC test” to determine a gig worker versus an employee.
NJDOL has claimed that the rule proposal is merely to codify those regulations as part of efforts to reduce misclassification.
But NJBIA, other business groups, legislators and independent contractors en masse have shown that they instead transform the rules, so it is much more challenging to be an independent contractor in the state.
“These changes are not codification, as the Department asserts, they are transformation,” Siekerka said. “The proposal effectively flips the ABC test into an ‘employment presumption’ standard, which is inconsistent with New Jersey’s judicial precedents.
“We need to ensure the flexibility and the economy of independent contractors and stop looking to add costs and burdens to New Jersey businesses.”
Since posting the rule proposal, NJDOL has faced massive pushback from the public and lawmakers.
Last month, District 13 Senator Declan O'Scanlon, Assemblyman Gerry Scharfenberger and Assemblywoman Vicky Flynn announced legislation that would nullify NJDOL’s proposal if it went forward with the rule.
Prior to that announcement, 21 legislators from both sides of the aisle had urged NJDOL to pull the rule during the comment period.
NJBIA and Kavin have posted stories about some of the contents of the comments. Links can be found here:
