Why
NAIWE strongly supports its message about the need to protect the choice of self-employment and the need to reject California’s failed, anti-independent contractor ABC Test.
The amicus brief gives us a voice as it explains how the push to restrict independent contractor work creates an unfair regulatory landscape, favoring paid lobbyists and those with special access to lawmakers. Thus, NAIWE is among those bringing it to the forefront of policymakers’ and lawmakers’ agendas nationwide.
What NAIWE hopes to accomplish
NAIWE is advocating for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) not to adopt the ABC Test. (Congress tried, and so far has failed, to copy in the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.)
What NAIWE members can do
NAIWE encourages you to amplify your voice with that of your fellow freelancers by sharing the brief on your social media accounts (please use the hashtag #ReadTheBrief) and contacting your representatives in Congress with your concerns for the ABC test and similarly restrictive tests that classify independent contractors as many of our decisionmakers are not aware of how we choose to operate our businesses.
Synapsis of brief
The brief represents a broad coalition of 250,000 freelancers, including writers, editors, translators, and other communicators.
The brief, filed in response to a request from the NLRB, argues that the ABC test should not be adopted by the NLRB in defining independent contractor relationships. The same ABC Test decimated independent contractor income and careers as California’s Assembly Bill 5, requiring later revisions to AB5.
The amicus brief further explains that independent contractors comprise one-third of the U.S. workforce; details why more women have been choosing independent contractor work for decades, including during the pandemic; dispels the myth that app-based workers make up a large percentage of these small-business owners; and cites a litany of studies showing that the vast majority of independent contractors want to remain independent.
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