Last week, there were two developments in the battle to define the status of independent contractor (IC): it is possible that the definition of what jobs in the status of IC in a country that is a main pole of transportation. Another works to relax standards.
Last week in New Jersey, the Ministry of Labor and Development of the State Labor announced that it had proposed a new law with the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law that could adjust the ABC test through government officials. The state said that the encrypted ABC test will be merged into the government’s unemployment compensation law, its wage and hour law and its wage payment law.
The ABC test is mostly known as the core of California’s AB5 law, which is recognized as a decision to determine ABC as a decisive guideline for state supervisory authorities and courts to determine whether a worker is a legal IC or should be considered an employee. It is intended to have a lot of weight in defining this worker as an employee with a difficult set of obstacles to the IC situation.
And in Washington, in the last Ping Pong match between Trump’s two governments and the Biden interference government over a federal IC law released by Trump’s first government, it was expanded and then replaced with the personal copy of the Biden administration.
The letter sent to this field
The US Department of Labor and Wage CEO, Donald Harrison, sent a note to the WHD regional managers and regional managers on May 1, which told them: It never matters.
In Harrison’s note, referring to the continuous petitions on Biden’s law in January 2024, the Ministry of Labor has “obtained this official in the lawsuits that are being revised in the 2024 law, including whether it cancels the bylaws. In particular, the WHD is currently investigating and developing a standard standards for independent standards.”
One of the most informed observers of the IC situation – and one who writes what is thought is the only blog dedicated to this – Robert Ribbon’s lawyer is from the Troutman Pepper Locke Law Institute. In recent posts back, he again emphasized the previous view that the IC law in WHD is not of particular importance to what the courts are in question.
Great change in the state of the garden
But Reibstein’s view of New Jersey changes in AB5 is very serious in predicting their impact on ICS in Garden State.
Describing its goals for changes it proposes, the government said, “The proposed laws” are not only the rights and benefits of employees that are mistakenly classified as independent contractors, but also to confirm the right of real independent contractors to prevent employment in favor of business -based companies based. “
But Ribbenstein saw the impact much beyond.
“This new bylaw probably makes companies using ICS in New Jersey stop operating in the state of the garden or double their efforts to strengthen their IC conformity,” Ribbenstein said. “Double” can include the use of the services provided by the Truutman Pepper Locke Law Institute called IC Diagnostics.
In California, the transportation sector focuses on the potential problems that the ABC test in AB5 can cause. B prong is a simple definition. He says if he “does something that is hired outside the usual period of business, he is considered an independent worker. A truck transport company can be seen in conflict using an independent truck driver.
A broad definition of the place of trade
In New Jersey, the proposed law is more detailed. For example, the definition of “usual business period” in New Jersey’s proposal includes physical places, not just activities.
According to Ribbon, the proposed expansion of the “workplace” definition “is almost quite an opportunity for most ICs and companies that use their services to create workers’ IC status.”
“The expansion of real estate under B prong means” they say that any place you go under the sun is a company place, “Ribbenstein said in an interview with Freightwaves. “Even if a truck does not go to a company -owned terminal, a broader definition means that any activity can be considered under the new law that is” business place “, and it creates B Brong,” he said.
Ribbenstein also wrote that the expansion of the definition of trade is in conflict with one of the legal issues cited by the government as a reason for its changes and is likely to raise the challenges of the court.
A 60 -day commentary on the proposed law that began on Monday. Email comments can be sent to David Fish from the Ministry of Labor and Labor Development at [email protected].
Ribbenstein noted in his blog: While there have been dozens of AB5 exemptions in California, none in New Jersey have been proposed to intensify ABC law yet.
In federal do, the scorecard goes as follows:
- The Trump administration enforced a new law in the IC classification in the decline of Trump 1.
- The newly installed Biden government quickly shook it until a judge said he could not do so and needs to be passed through ordinary law.
- The sovereignty led to a new standard that was not different from Trump’s law, and only a little more than a year before leaving Biden.
On the sidelines, Biden’s law is most likely to be used as an employee classification as an employee, not an IC.
Ribbenstein has been compatible in his views on the Dol IC law: all this is not a big deal.
” [letter from Harrison] It has a very limited impact and does not exert government laws that have different and often more strict tests than the IC situation than the law of fair labor standards. “
The statement repeated what he wrote on the launch of the law in January 2024: “However, the legal impact of the final law is hard to create. After all, there are courts that create the law, not supervisory agencies.”
In an interview with Freightwaves, Ribbenstein noted: Trump’s first law replaced an Obama law that was a leader and similar to the Biden law. “Every successive government for the past nine years is trying to thwart the previous government’s position on the test for the independent contractor,” he said. “And the courts don’t really care because they have been interpreting FLSA in a way compatible with the Supreme Court.”
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