The 60-day written comment period for a proposal by the New Jersey Department of Labor to drastically reduce the number of independent contractors in the state ends on Tuesday.
But comments made in public by the growing number of people opposing the controversial proposal promise to continue well afterward.
The past month has seen an onslaught of letters from influential New Jersey lawmakers from both sides of the aisle telling NJDOL to withdraw the rule, as well as comments from U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) on the importance of gig workers maintaining flexibility and near daily criticism of the rule from callers on NJ101.5’s top-rated morning show with Eric Scott.
And that’s all on top of a NJDOL public hearing where overwhelming opposition was voiced to the rule, and the daily work put in by NJBIA’s Vice President of Government Affairs Elissa Frank and Fight for Freelancers’ Kim Kavin to challenge the legality of NJDOL’s move and make lawmakers aware of the economic devastation left in the wake of a similar law made in California in 2019.
But even with all that, the question still remains: Will NJDOL pull the plug on the proposal?
“We don’t know, but we know that it would be the prudent thing to do,” Frank said. “We saw similar legislation in 2019 fail, and the pushback from independent workers who will have their livelihoods and flexibility upended has only grown stronger, as has the opposition from the business community.
“This is not to say that misclassification...
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