Freelancebusting.com’s Kim Kavin said the recent spate of legislation from certain sectors looking for a carveout from the Sherrill administration’s independent contractor rule will ultimately result in more freelance losers, particularly women, minorities and mothers, than well-connected winners.
Speaking on NJ101.5’s Jersey Thing with Eric Scott this week, Kavin noted that after California's similar version of New Jersey's independent contractor rule in 2019, a report called The Impact of California's AB5 on Marginalized Communities showed damning testimony that revealed disproportionate harm to women freelancers more than men in the Golden State.
“Their job was to go in and look at what actually happened when California did this," Kavin told Scott. "They spent years taking testimony and looking through the outcomes. They wrote a report that said this disproportionately and negatively hurts women, immigrants, people of color - the politically powerless.
“They specifically said other states should not rush into adopting this kind of regulatory language and then politicizing the exemption process. Everything that these people wrote about potential violations of civil rights, New Jersey is doing right now. And the sexism part is real.”
The report, found here, was prepared by Members of the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
The controversial rule, first proposed by the Murphy administration and adopted by the Sherrill administration despite 9,500 letters opposing it, is set to take effect on Oct. 1.
Multiple legislators and NJBIA are urging the administration to delay the implementation of the rule until July 1, 2027, to allow for more time to address the grave concerns of New Jersey’s gig workers and businesses.
While supporting the carveout bills that protect independent contractors, NJBIA has strongly opposed the new rule as the more stringent criteria for the ABC test makes it more challenging for a worker to be a freelance worker.
Currently, the association is urging freelancers, businesses that utilize them and consumers who benefit from them, to tell the Sherrill administration to pause the rule at njbia.org/ABCDelay.
“The way this is happening, at best, we're talking about cronyism,” Kavin told Scott. “At worst, we're talking about a process that's just totally, wildly out of whack and wrong.
“We're going to see more (carveout bills) come because people have lobbyists who get special treatment. The more of these bills that get introduced and moved, the more we know that the underlying policy is exactly what we have all been saying for years – that this (rule) is wrong.
“This is hurting innocent, hardworking people. The Legislature needs to step in and stop it,” Kavin said.
Since the rule was first adopted by Gov. Sherrill, there have been several legislative attempts to create exemptions by various groups.
Thus far, those sectors have been male dominated, Kavin said.
In testimony submitted to the Assembly Labor Committee this week to oppose bill A-4735, which declares amateur sports officials as independent contractors for purposes of state employment laws, Kavin, an independent contractor herself for more than 20 years, wrote:
"Adding further insult to that existing injury against New Jersey’s entrepreneurial women, A-4735 seeks to protect amateur sports officials—a profession that is 90% to 93% male.
"And this bill comes after 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).
"The New Jersey Legislature, in choosing which professions it plans to carve out so people can continue earning a living, is systematically favoring male-dominated professions over female-dominated professions."
To view Kavin’s full interview with Scott, click here.
