DOL’s independent contractor rule withdrawn
The Department of Labor is officially withdrawing a late-Trump-era rulemaking that would have clarified the definition within the Fair Labor Standards Act. Because the rule never took effect, owner-operators will so no changes as a result of the rule’s withdrawal.
DOL published the final rule on Jan. 7, shortly before the end of Trump’s presidency. Just days prior to the rule’s publication, the incoming Biden administration specifically mentioned the independent contractor rule as one of Trump’s “midnight regulations” that would be halted.
The independent contractor rule would have used five economic-reality factors to help businesses determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. Two of those factors – the nature and degree of the worker’s control over the work and the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss – were the two “core” factors for determining a worker’s classification and carried greater weight than the other three factors.
The other factors included the amount of skill required for the work; the degree of permanence of the working relationship between the worker and the potential employer; and whether the work is part of an integrated unit of production.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association expressed disappointment in the withdrawal, which the group says “would have provided owner-operators additional certainty about their worker classification status.” OOIDA adds that it believes under the rule, owner-operators could have generally continued working under their existing arrangements with carriers without fear of being reclassified as employees.
“The department’s final rule, for the most part, would have helped provide new certainty and clarity to owner-operators,” said Lewie Pugh, executive vice president. “While there were certainly some provisions that needed to be fixed, this could have been done without the wholesale withdrawal of the rule.”
DOL says it received more than 1,000 comments on its proposal to withdraw the independent contractor rule both in support of and opposition to the rule’s withdrawal. Those who generally supported the rule’s withdrawal felt that it would have “facilitated the exploitation of workers reclassified or misclassified as independent contractors as a consequence of the rule.”
Those opposed to withdrawing the rule, which DOL says included a number of people who identified themselves as current or former independent contractors, felt the rule would have provided “a clearer and preferable analysis for determining employee or independent contractor status.”
Original article provided by: https://www.ccjdigital.com/business/article/15065406/labor-depts-independent-contractor-rule-withdrawn
