The Biden administration’s wage arm is following through on its promise to police worker misclassification, but some opponents of the stricter approach say the enforcement spree could weaken an argument for a new rule on the issue.
The US Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division has touted six cases since May that collectively found nearly 1,000 workers who were wrongly labeled as independent contractors when they should have been classified as employees.
At the same time, the DOL has been working on a new regulation to outline how it will define who is an independent contractor or employee under federal wage law—a change Labor Department officials say is needed to help better combat worker misclassification.
Business groups are particularly vexed by the administration’s rulemaking out of concern it would expand their legal liabilities and increase costs if more workers are classified as employees with protections under federal wage laws.
“As we have said to them on numerous occasions, they don’t need a new regulation to go after the problems that are out there,” said Marc Freedman, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president for workplace policy. “DOL has demonstrated that they have adequate regulatory authority and clarity to go after situations where workers have been misclassified.”
Shortly after President Joe Biden took office, the DOL...
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