House Bill Would Penalize Misclassification

The flurry of introduced legislation intended to address employee misclassification continues: A new bill introduced in the House by Democratic Representatives Woolsey and Andrews would penalize employers who improperly classify their employees as contractors to save on payroll taxes, benefits, and other costs.

The Employee Misclassification Prevention Act would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to clarify language around employee -- contractor classification [i.e., whether individuals should be paid as a W2 or a 1099], increase reporting and communications between the . . .

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Rep. McDermott introduces new worker classification legislation

Turning up the heat:

Proper classification of contractors and employees continues to hit the headlines on a regular basis, and the latest news is the release of yet another legislative effort to eliminate worker misclassification and help state and federal tax agencies recover more revenues without raising taxes. Representatives McDermott, Tierney, and Neal introduced The Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act in session yesterday. Adding fuel to the fire, the labor Unions have issued a variety of press releases today praising the measure. The Unions argue that misclassification as contractors prevents workers from being able to join and therefore infringes on their right to organize.

Granted that this is an election year and a variety of powerful lobbies (and not just the unions) are interested in passing this kind of legislation, interest and pressure in the topic of worker classification will only increase in the coming months.

We'll be adding this bill to our Legislation Tracker page as soon as it becomes available on GovTrack, so stay tuned to these pages!

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Obama's IC Bill Still In Committee

Senator Obama's Senate bill confronting independent contractor classification is currently in the Senate Finance Committee. In case you haven't been tracking this issue, the bill was introduced last September and would allow the U.S. Treasury to wield a whole lot more power than it currently does. In one sense it would 'take the muzzle off' the dogs of enforcement. In addition, the bill will also eliminate the "everybody's doing it" defense of industry practice as a justification for worker misclassification.

If the bill becomes law, it would dramatically shift the landscape of contractor classification. Industries known to habitually misclassify workers would be fair game for investigation, and information for workers about proper classification would be added to the Department of Labor's workplace signage to help make sure every worker understands their labor rights.

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