Letter To Our Editor: Amendment Approval Could Hurt Freelancers – Journal & Topics Newspapers Online

Editor, Journal:

The proposed amendment to Illinois’ constitution and a proposed regulation from the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) are marketed as a way to protect workers but actually have the potential to harm smaller self-employed entrepreneurs.

Any industry that employs freelancers now is going to be affected. These include journalists, lawyers, travel nurses, therapists, artists, photographers, writers, editors, truckers. Do you have part-time jobs that you’re doing from home? Congratulations, you’re a freelancer, and on Nov. 8, you could lose the right to control your own work. The legislation will hurt those just starting out in their fields, along with immigrants, women, seniors, the disabled, and people of color.

The amendment on the Illinois ballot is phrased deceptively. It’s a yes-or-no question of whether workers should have the right to organize. The amendment’s full text includes the ABC income test, which dates from the Depression. It says that you can’t work in the same industry as the hiring entity without being considered an employee. California implemented the ABC test in its law with disastrous results. Instead of companies being encouraged to hire local workers, companies stopped using Californians. It ruined many independent contractors and failed to protect gig workers.

Unions want the ABC test accepted nationwide. Congress rejected it, so now unions are trying to change state laws and introduce federal regulations that completely ignore how industries actually work. Most publishing professionals, for example, are freelancers who set their own rates and hours, can make more money than they would as employees on a single job, and retain their own intellectual property rights on individual projects. Even if publishers were willing to hire them as full-time staff (which they often aren’t), if freelancers become employees, all that would disappear.

If you want to know more about the ABC test, visit fightforfreelancersusa.com, especially the press release section. The press release about the latest USDOL regulation is here: fightforfreelancersusa.files.wordpress.com/2022/10/2022.oct-usdol-proposed-rule.pdf.

Everyone should have the right to protections that labor law can afford. But we shouldn’t ruin independent contractors in the process of putting those protections in place.

Vote “No” on Illinois’ amendment and submit a public comment to the USDOL opposing its regulation at www.regulations.gov/document/WHD-2022-0003-0001. Tell those you know to do the same, especially in public social media posts. Comments are only accepted until Nov. 28.

Miranda Lukatch
Park Ridge

Support local news by subscribing to the Journal & Topics in print or online.

Techyrack Website stock market day trading and youtube monetization and adsense Approval

Adsense Arbitrage website traffic Get Adsense Approval Google Adsense Earnings Traffic Arbitrage YouTube Monetization YouTube Monetization, Watchtime and Subscribers Ready Monetized Autoblog

from Hire Freelancers – My Blog https://www.techyrack.com/syndication/2022/10/19/letter-to-our-editor-amendment-approval-could-hurt-freelancers-journal-topics-newspapers-online/
via IFTTT