The U.S. Labor Department this week announced its proposed rule to redefine who is considered an independent contractor and who is an employee. The proposal has the potential to misclassify millions of legitimate independent contractors in a way that threatens their income and livelihoods, as well as their health. … Read more …
This week marks three years since California’s ABC Test-based Assembly Bill 5 was signed into law, kicking off a nationwide, union-led effort to reclassify tens of millions of self-employed Americans as employees who would then ostensibly gain traditional jobs and become eligible for unionization. But in the three years since this anti-independent contractor push began, its primary results have been the destruction of independent contractor careers and widespread citizen backlash against lawmakers and regulators who continue to champion the idea. … Read more …
Today, Fight For Freelancers joined forces with several other ad hoc groups of independent contractors nationwide to launch #WhatTheHellDOL, a social media campaign created in response to the U.S. Department of Labor’s announcement that it plans to rewrite the rules for who can legally qualify as self-employed. Read our press release …
Fight For Freelancers has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court representing more than 275,000 people, in support of a lawsuit by the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Inc., and the National Press Photographers Association that challenges California’s ABC Test law, Assembly Bill 5, on First Amendment grounds. Read the Fight For Freelancers press release, or read the Fight For Freelancers amicus brief.
As published in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “If the Great Resignation and the shift of even more women into self-employment does nothing else, it should be a clarion call to lawmakers, regulators, and thought leaders that it’s time for them to do a Great Rethinking about the need to protect all independent contractor careers.” … Read more …
As published in The Hill: “This entire push is terrifyingly detached from reality. Study after study shows 70 percent to 85 percent of independent contractors are just plain happier this way. Some 60 percent said in the thick of 2020s pandemic problems that no amount of money would get them to take a traditional job.” … Read more…
As reported by HDT Heavy Duty Trucking: “The majority of owner-operators expect that they would experience significant decreases in their job satisfaction (73%) and annual income (68%) if they were reclassified to a company driver.” … Read more…
“Yesterday’s hearing by the Senate HELP Committee focused almost entirely on making it easier for current employees to unionize, while failing to recognize how parts of the PRO Act would harm the country’s 59 million independent contractors…” Read more…
As published by Entrepreneur: “According to a former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, the PRO Act would likely make it a violation of federal law merely to continue existing business relationships with some independent contractors, even though 79% of independent contractors say they prefer the current relationships to the types of traditional employer-employee jobs the PRO Act favors.” … Read more …
“The American Society of Journalists and Authors presented its Exceptional Service Award—a special honor given only periodically—to Debbie Abrams Kaplan, Kim Kavin, Jen Singer and Karon Warren, co-leaders of the the nonpartisan, grassroots, self-funded, ad hoc coalition Fight For Freelancers USA.” … Read more …
Fight For Freelancers USA 