#independent contractors

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Craig Harrington at MMFA:

The economic policy provisions outlined by Project 2025 — the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration — are overwhelmingly catered toward benefiting wealthier Americans and corporate interests at the expense of average workers and taxpayers. Project 2025 prioritizes redoubling Republican efforts to expand “trickle-down” tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation across the economy. The authors of the effort’s policy book, Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise, recommend putting key government agencies responsible for oversight of large sectors of the economy under direct right-wing political control and empowering those agencies to prioritize right-wing agendas in dealing with everything from consumer protections to organized labor activity. [...]

Project 2025 would chill labor unions' abilities to engage in political activity. Project 2025 suggests that the National Labor Relations Board change its enforcement priorities regarding what it describes as unions using “members' resources on left-wing culture-war issues.” The authors encourage allowing employees to accuse union leadership of violating their “duty of fair representation” by having “political conflicts of interest” if the union engages in political activity that the employee disagrees with. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; National Labor Relations Board, accessed 7/8/24]

Project 2025 would make it easier for employers to classify workers as “independent contractors.” The authors recommended reinstating policies governing the classification of independent contractors that the NLRB implemented during the Trump administration. Those Trump-era NLRB regulations were amended in 2023, expanding workplace and labor organizing protections to previously exempt American workers. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; The National Law Review, 6/19/23; National Labor Relations Board, 6/13/23]

Project 2025 would reduce base overtime pay for workers. The authors recommend changing overtime protections to remove nonwage compensatory and other workplace benefits from calculations of their “regular” pay rate, which forms the basis for overtime formulations. If that change is enacted, every worker currently given overtime protections could be subject to a slight reduction in the value of their overtime pay, which the authors claim will encourage employers to provide nonwage benefits but would effectively just amount to a pay cut. The authors also propose other changes to the way overtime is calculated and enforced, which could result in reduced compensation for workers. Overtime protections have long been a focus of right-wing media campaigns to reduce protections afforded to American workers. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023, Media Matters, 7/9/24]

Project 2025 proposes capping and phasing out visa programs for migrant workers. Project 2025’s authors propose capping and eventually eliminating the H-2A and H-2B temporary work visa programs, which are available for seasonal agricultural and nonagricultural workers, respectively. Even the Project 2025 authors admit that these proposals could threaten many businesses that rely on migrant workers and could result in higher prices for consumers. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

Project 2025 recommends institutionalizing the “Judeo-Christian tradition” of the Sabbath. Under the guise of creating a “communal day of rest,” Project 2025 includes a policy proposal amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to require paying workers who currently receive overtime protections “time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath,” which it said “would default to Sunday.” Ostensibly a policy that increases wages, the proposal is specifically meant to disincentivize employers from providing services on Sundays as an explicitly religious overture. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

[...]

International Trade

Project 2025 contains a lengthy debate between diametrically opposed perspectives on international trade and commerce.Over the course of 31 pages, disgraced former Trump adviser and current federal inmate Peter Navarro outlines various proposals to fundamentally transform American international commercial and domestic industrial policy in opposition to China, primarily by using tariffs. He dedicates well over a dozen pages to obsessing over America’s trade deficit with China, even though Trump’s trade war with China was a failure and as he focused on China, the overall U.S. trade deficit exploded. Much of the rest of Navarro’s section is economic saber-rattling against “Communist China’s economic aggression and quest for world domination.”In response, Kent Lassman of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute promotes a return to free trade orthodoxy that was previously pursued by the Republican Party but has fallen out of favor during the Trump era.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda would be a boon for the wealthy and a disaster for the working class folk.

See Also:

MMFA: Project 2025’s dystopian approach to taxes

[venezart]

The Power of Leading by Example

Denis Waitley’s quote, “I’d rather watch a winner than hear one any day,” captures the essence of leadership and success through action, not words. It highlights the importance of living out success rather than merely talking about it.

Actions Over Words: The quote suggests that true winners don’t just talk about their plans, goals, or achievements—they demonstrate them through their actions. People are more inspired by visible effort and results than by promises or declarations of intent. Watching someone succeed through hard work is far more impactful than listening to someone boast about it.

[roguekhajiit]

Storytime.

Keeping with the trend of avoiding politics right now, I wanna talk about a conversation I had at work.

As some of you may know, I'm a contracted mail carrier for the USPS. The routes I deliver on are very rural, too rural, even for the NRLCA (National Rural Letter Carriers' Association.

HC (highway contracted) routes look like this:

So, it can often be hard to tell that there is a house or houses located behind those trees, and oftentimes Google will be half a mile off on where an address is located.

So, last week, I was trying to find a house on my route to deliver a certified letter, I couldn't locate them, and Google was directing me to another street.

So, I had to leave them a notice in their mailbox telling them they needed to put their house number at the end of their driveway. Let me add here that the mailboxes on these routes are sometimes as far as a mile and a half from their door.

They showed up at the post office on Monday with the notice in hand, confused about why they had to make their house number visible from the street. The clerk kept trying to explain to them why, but they just weren't getting the picture. Eventually, the clerk approached me, frustrated, and asked me to please talk with them.

So, I go to talk to them and I tell them exactly why; because I couldn't find their house.

Where was 150 Main Street? The addresses on that road started at 170 Main Street. There wasn't another section of Main Street and it T-d with First Street. (All streets and addresses are generic and made up.) They told me that their address was 150 Main Street, but their driveway and front door were at the corner of First and Second Streets. (Um, what?!) They then told me that the EMTs also had a hard time finding their house. So, you already had a medical emergency that required an ambulance to be dispatched to your house, and you still didn't think to make it easier for first responders to find you? If emergency personnel can't find you, how can your mail carrier find you?

It took 3 people explaining this to them for 15 minutes for them to understand, "I need to put my address at the start of my driveway."

So yeah... make your address visible from the road people. It could be the difference between living to see another day or laying dead on your kitchen floor until your adult children finally decide to pay you a visit.

[merelygifted]

The U.S. Department of Labor has published a new proposal on how workers should be classified saying that thousands of people have been incorrectly labeled as contractors rather than employees.

The U.S. Department of Labor has published a new proposal on how workers should be classified saying that thousands of people have been incorrectly labeled as contractors rather than employees, potentially curtailing access to benefits and protections they rightfully deserve. Misclassifying workers as independent contractors denies those workers protections under federal labor standards, promotes wage theft, allows certain employers to gain an unfair advantage over businesses, and hurts the economy, the department said Tuesday. The reaction in markets for major gig companies was immediate. Shares of Lyft and Uber tumbled about 13%. in early trading. The misclassification of workers has negatively impacted delivery workers, custodians, truck drivers, waiters, construction workers and more, according to the department. "While independent contractors have an important role in our economy, we have seen in many cases that employers misclassify their employees as independent contractors, particularly among our nation's most vulnerable workers," said Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh in a prepared statement. "Misclassification deprives workers of their federal labor protections, including their right to be paid their full, legally earned wages."  ...

[reasonandempathy]

What can we do to improve these independent contractor laws?

This has been sitting in my inbox for a minute, largely because I didn't have any real or solid answers other than "elect people", but something just came up today.

The Department of Labor is proposing new rules around Independent Contractors to strengthen their protections and make it more difficult to classify employees as ICs. It reverses a very late Trump DoL rule saying that the only 2 main things to consider when classifying an IC were "Degree of Control" and "ability to profit/lose money", which historically have helped companies like Uber get away with labeling their drivers ICs. Yes, it's an older issue than 2021, but the 2021 rule helped companies abuse their Independent Contractors.

From the Executive Summary:

the Department is not proposing the use of “core factors” but instead proposes to return to a totality-of-the circumstances analysis of the economic reality test in which the factors do not have a predetermined weight and are considered in view of the economic reality of the whole activity. The Department is further proposing to return the consideration of investment to a standalone factor, provide additional analysis of the control factor (including detailed discussions of how scheduling, supervision, price-setting, and the ability to work for others should be considered), and return to the longstanding interpretation of the integral factor, which considers whether the work is integral to the employer’s business.

The "totality of the circumstances" refers to:

the opportunity for profit or loss, [and company]investment

permanency

the degree of control by the employer over the worker

whether the work is an integral part of the employer’s business

Skill and initiative

By removing the other factors, an IC could be a key and integral part of your company and be untrained, meaning that arguments opened up for production line workers could be made into Independent Contractors, or (famously) uber drivers were almost certainly ICs under the federal law.

Adding them back in would significantly protect wide swaths of both skilled and unskilled workers.

In order to support the law, there is a public comment period from Oct 13th to Nov 27th where you can mail and digitally submit your comments and support.

You may submit comments, identified by Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) 1235-AA43, by either of the following methods:

Electronic Comments: Submit comments through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.

Mail: Address written submissions to:

Division of Regulations, Legislation, and Interpretation, Wage and Hour Division U.S. Department of Labor, Room S-3502, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210.

[misclassifiedsp]

Independent Contractor vs. Employee

How can you tell the difference?

Control.

"You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer (what will be done and how it will be done). This applies even if you are given freedom of action. What matters is that the employer has the legal right to control the details of how the services are performed.

If an employer-employee relationship exists (regardless of what the relationship is called), then you are not an independent contractor...."

[nationallawreview]

As the Season Changes, Don’t Fall Behind: 4 Key Employment Law Trends

As the seasons change, so do manufacturers’ priorities. Fall is typically one of the busiest hiring periods of the calendar year, so many manufacturers are likely bracing themselves for this challenge. That said, there were several significant labor and employment updates this spring and summer of which manufacturers should be aware; below are four key trends that may require action to ensure…

[artisticdivasworld]

August Trucking News: A Mixed Bag for Owner-Operators

As we wrap up August, it’s been a rollercoaster month for owner-operators in the trucking industry. Here’s a rundown of ten key news stories that have made an impact, both positively and negatively. Credit: AFTdispatch.com Freight Market Struggles Continue The ongoing freight recession has intensified, with a surplus of trucks on the road and a decline in e-commerce demand leading to lower…

[erebusvincent]

The entire episode brings up the obvious question: "Why"? For six years, the state has been trying to impose regulations on an industry that would undermine its fundamental model and obliterate jobs. They are telegraphing to others that if you develop a great idea this state will spend years trying to crush you. Maybe the California Supreme Court will bail you out eventually, but who has enough time, money and blood-pressure medicine to want to bother?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

It’s been barely a week since conservatives on the US Supreme Court radically upended the balance of power between the branches of government, giving the federal courts the exclusive power to interpret statutes rather than deferring to agency experts. And we’re already seeing impacts on the ground. Right-wingers have been in the habit of running to their preferred courts to get regulations overturned, but the decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which officially destroyed agency deference, will make it easier — even routine — to block every Biden administration rule they don’t like.  Lawsuits to invalidate specific rules had been proceeding through the federal courts before Loper Bright, generally arguing that agencies exceeded their authority in promulgating a rule. These lawsuits exist in no small part because the Supreme Court made it clear they would destroy Chevron deference for years now, with Justice Neil Gorsuch having led the way well before his appointment to the Court. 

Trump appointee Sean Jordan, who sits in the reliably hard-right Eastern District of Texas, was so eager to block a Biden administration’s overtime rule that he dropped his decision the same day Loper Bright came out. It runs 36 pages and mentions Loper Bright multiple times, which means either Jordan was so confident of the Supreme Court decision that he either wrote it in advance or he hurried to stuff Loper Bright into his already-written opinion. Jordan’s opinion also rests heavily on dictionary definitions rather than expertise from the Department of Labor, which issued the rule. So now, the rule that would have made 4 million more Texas workers eligible for overtime, and thus more pay, is blocked thanks to a hurried read of a SCOTUS opinion and Webster’s Dictionary. 

What this mean is that anytime a business doesn’t like a federal rule, it can just sue. It promises to be a free-for-all. Three hospitals in New Jersey sued HHS the day Loper Bright came down, saying the agency’s interpretation of a statute governing Medicare reimbursement is unlawful. In another case, filed before Loper Bright, a trucking company challenging the Biden administration’s rule that addressed misclassification of independent contractors filed a memorandum on July 2 arguing that Loper Bright means the court should not defer to the Department of Labor’s interpretation of the law. The next day, Trump appointee Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas enjoined enforcement of the Biden administration’s rule prohibiting non-compete agreements but limited the injunction to the plaintiffs, which are various pro-business groups like the Chamber of Commerce. 

[...]

Bigotry from the bench

Unsurprisingly, much of the assault on administration rules relates to any regulation that would protect transgender people. Four days after Loper Bright was handed down, another Trump appointee, Judge John W. Broomes in Kansas, enjoined the Department of Education from enforcing its Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs rule in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming. The Department of Education spent two years finalizing the rule, which would have prohibited discrimination based on gender identity under Title IX.  The unofficial text of the rule, which runs 1,577 pages with supporting material, is jam-packed with legal analysis. Hundreds of pages are spent explaining how the DOE considered and addressed public comments and the document details the mental health impact of discrimination against LGBTQ students. 

Broomes’s expertise is in natural resource law, a background that does not lend itself to a detailed understanding of Title IX, sex discrimination, or gender identity. But none of that matters. His opinion sneers about “self-professed and potentially ever-changing gender identity” and insists that things like using correct pronouns for students and allowing them to use the bathroom that conforms with their gender identity is an issue of “vast economic” significance. Given that the only costs of the rule are things like updated administrative guidance and perhaps hiring additional Title IX staff, the idea it is a vast economic question is, to put it politely, a reach. Instead, Broomes sided with the conservative plaintiffs, including Moms for Liberty and an Oklahoma student who asserted that using the correct pronouns for other students violated her religious beliefs. Because of this mix of conservative state litigants, private anti-trans groups, and an Oklahoma student, the extent of Broomes’s injunction is even weirder than the patchwork blocking of the HHS rule.

Besides blocking the rule entirely in four states, the rule is also blocked for the schools attended by the members of two private plaintiffs, Young America’s Foundation and Female Athletes United, and all schools attended by the children of members of Moms for Liberty. So now, if you are a transgender student unlucky enough to attend school anywhere in the country where a child of a Moms for Liberty student also attends, you’re out of luck. If your school is free of children of book-banners, you get the protection of the federal rule — unless you live in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming, in which case it doesn’t matter what school you go to.  Over at Law Dork, Chris Geidner has a good rundown of not just how the courts are sledgehammering LGBTQ rights, but also how having courts, rather than regulators, make these decisions results in an uneven patchwork of rulings over a Health and Human Services rule that prohibited health care providers from discriminating based on gender identity. Only five days after Loper Bright was issued, three separate federal courts issued rulings blocking parts of the HHS rule. There’s no chance that William Jung, a Trump appointee to the federal district court for the Middle District of Florida, hadn’t already written most of his decision before Loper Bright was issued, but the case gave him far more ammunition. Fung’s ruling in Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services blocked part of the Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities rule from going into effect — but only in Florida. 

The Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ruling by the judicial activist MAGA Majority on the Supreme Court is having devastating consequences.

[venezart]

You Deserve Your Best Effort

Denis Waitley’s quote, "Give your best effort, because you are worth your best effort," is a powerful reminder of the connection between self-worth and the effort we put into our goals. It emphasizes that the value we place on ourselves should reflect in how much we commit to what we do.

You Are Worth It: The quote highlights the importance of recognizing our own value. If we believe that we are worthy of success and fulfillment, we will naturally want to give our best effort in everything we do. This effort is not just about achieving external results but also about honoring ourselves by showing up fully for the tasks and challenges we face.

[agreatagency]

All knees bow down to love, The purest form from above. God is love, the ultimate guide, Without it, only tolerance resides.

Agape love, selfless and true, A force that binds me and you. In its embrace, we find peace, And all our worries and fears cease.

Let us cherish this love divine, And let it in our hearts entwine. For in its, we find our way, And in its light, we see a brighter day.

*All Rights Reserved

Thank you for giving me the gift of reading my poem. My name is Kimberly McNamee, I wrote Agape Love Poem and I hope this message finds you well.

If you have not heard the gossip I wanted to share with you regarding our agency's hiring process.

A Great Agency, a top-notch Billion Dollar Company, is currently seeking Independent Contractors to join our team. I have included a job description below for your review. We are looking for someone who is passionate about Real Estate, Tourism and/or Insurance, and who is ready to take on new and grow with our company. This is an opportunity to work with a dynamic team of professionals and make a real impact in the industry. If you know anyone who would be good for this position, please feel free to share the job description with them.

We will always be hiring for this role, so any referrals are greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Please let me know if you have any questions or if there is anything else I can assist you with. Best regards, ~Kimberly McNamee

See you soon!

Description:

Our company is a garden, rooted by connections, Where faith and business meet, and flourish in perfection. For over four years, my fiance and I have labored In Real Estate, Tourism, and Insurance, we've savored.

Now, we're seeking independent contractors to join our team, To help us grow and thrive, and fulfill our dream. I'm a faith-based writer, with gifts of lead generation, And virtual assistance, I bring to the equation.

My better half, the business guru, handles the laws, And tech support, he's the one never pauses. Together, we're a power couple, unstoppable and strong, With a vision to change lives, and right what's been wrong.

We believe in diligence, and the power of hard work, For a slack hand causes poverty, and that's a fact that lurks. But with us, you'll have the dream life-changing job, On your terms, with the Keys to the Kingdom, you'll be on top.

Wisdom is better than diamonds and gold, And with us, you'll have both, as we unfold. Our company is the most watched business in history, And working here, you'll have the chance to make your own victory.

So, if you're ready to commit your work to the Lord, And establish your plans with us, you'll never be bored. Call us at 301-781-3123, and let's begin, The journey to success, where everyone wins.

[iamthedancing]

heads up that self employment taxes are due June 15!

I always forget when the deadlines are so: for anyone else who's self-employed/an independent contractor*, self-employment taxes for this quarter are due on June 15!

*I feel like 90% of the time this just means that we're employed but the company involved is playing legal games at our expense but hey

[2thinktalk]

In Defense of Independent Contractors, Freelancers, Consultants, etc.

I recently blogged about Unethical Organizations and Absolute Power. Here is another piece; all of which are interrelated. This piece is in defense of Independent Contractors, Freelancers, Consultants to some degree, and everyone who falls under the not-an-employee category (IC,F,C, et al). A Case for IC,F,Cs These folks (IC,F,C, et al) chose not to fall under the employee umbrella for a…

[artisticdivasworld]

Julie Su’s Independent Contractor Rule: What It Means for Truckers

Today, let’s talk about something that’s been stirring up a lot of talk in our industry: Julie Su’s Independent Contractor rule and what it means for truckers. There are strong opinions on both sides, so let’s break it down. So, what’s this rule all about? Julie Su, the Acting Labor Secretary, introduced a new rule that changes how workers are classified as either employees or independent…