Despite delay, many bad bills still moving forward
Hair professionals are celebrating the demise of Sen. Karen Keiser’s SB 5326. The bill initially sought to ban booth rentals, a common industry practice allowing several self-employed small-business owners to do the same work in a shared space, often utilizing shared products, reception, scheduling, utilities, and the like. After a massive show of protest, Sen. Keiser shelved the bill, at least for this year.
Two pairs of bills would create much the same sort of havoc for hair professionals and other self-employed, small-business owners sharing space or working collaboratively on joint projects.
Employee Fair Classification Act
HB 1515 and SB 5513, the so-called “Employee Fair Classification Act” would snare sole proprietors in the same sort of trap as Keiser’s booth-ban bill. These bills would create a legal presumption that people working together are employees of the landlord, general contractor, or other lead entity. That landlord, general contractor, or other lead entity would have to prove that each individual sole proprietor, particularly those with no employees of their own, meets a slightly revised test to be an “independent contractor.”
Moreover, this independent contractor test prohibits a business owner from charging fees or making deductions from compensation for any purpose, including space rental, goods, materials, services, repairs, equipment maintenance, and so on. Basically, this would bar a landlord from offering space or shared supplies and services to other small-business owners if both the landlord and one or more tenants are engaged in the same occupation.
The bills would also reverse a nearly decade-old agreement between business and labor exempting taxi, limousine, and ridesharing (think Uber or Lyft) drivers, or other “commercial transportation” contractors from the requirement to purchase workers’ compensation insurance from our state-run monopoly at the Department of Labor & Industries. That would make workers’ compensation coverage mandatory for those self-employed individuals, just like Keiser’s booth ban bill.
Rep. Mike Sells, the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee chairman, announced earlier this week that he is delaying further action on HB 1515 until February 28. He made it clear that bill sponsors need to work with stakeholders if they want the bill to be approved by his committee.
Senator Keiser, chairwoman of the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee, held a public hearing on SB 5513 on January 28. Further action on the bill has not been announced.
NFIB’s policy brief on these bills is available here.
Universal Worker Protection Act
HB 1601 and SB 5690, the “Universal Worker Protection Act,” includes the “Employee Fair Classification Act” and then adds new state-run wage boards that would govern pay, benefits, and labor standards for sole proprietors, including independent contractors, in five sectors:
- In-home caregiving and domestic services
- Passenger transport
- Product movement
- Sales
- Professional services.
These bills appear to primarily target individuals accepting work through online or app-based platforms, again like Uber and Lyft, or Task Rabbit, InstaCart, and many, many others. However, the language is broad enough that service professionals in nearly any industry – accountants, architects, barbers, hair stylists, lawyers, landscapers, you name it – could be targeted.
A union or other similar organization could enroll 250 of its members in Uber or InstaCart (or any other such app), then seek certification through the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) to be an official representative of all individuals in that particular field. Once certified, these groups would have access to substantial personal information – full name; physical address; email; all phone numbers, including cell phones – about everyone else who has signed up to work through that app or online platform. That information would then be used to recruit those individuals into what amounts to a sector bargaining group.
Three representatives of these bargaining groups, and three from businesses running the apps or online platforms, and four from L&I would compose the industry wage board.
These bills amount to little more than state-sponsored, forced unionization of small-business owners.
Rep. Mike Sells, chairman of the House Labor Committee, held a public hearing February 4 but pulled HB 1601 from a scheduled vote later this week. The Senate Labor Committee held a public hearing February 5 on SB 5690; further action has not yet been announced.
NFIB’s policy brief on these bills is available here.
Restrictive Scheduling
HB 1491 and SB 5717 would require food service, hospitality, and retail employers with 100 or more employees worldwide to post work schedules and transmit them to workers 14 days in advance. Those schedules would need to be in English and the primary languages spoken by each employee.
The requirements would also apply to franchises with 100 or more workers in the aggregate, regardless of the number of workers employed by a particular franchisee. Yet, stunningly, fine-dining and other full-service restaurants would be exempt so long as they have fewer than 40 locations globally.
The bills attempt to limit so-called “clopenings,” where workers may be scheduled to work a night shift followed by the morning shift the next day, by requiring shifts to be at least 12 hours apart. Workers could request or consent in writing to working shifts closer together than 12 hours but would receive time-and-a-half for any hours that are less than 12 hours from the end of their last shift.
The bills contain a variety of restrictions on employer-driven schedule changes and would make it very difficult to deny a worker’s request for time off or to require the worker requesting leave to find a replacement.
Hiring new or temporary employees, or engaging subcontractors, would be encumbered by internal notice, promotion, or hour increase requirements for existing employees.
The bills also include numerous penalties for violating various requirements of the proposed law. Worse yet, they include bounty-hunter provisions allowing a worker or organization acting on the worker’s behalf to be compensated for filing complaints.
A public hearing on HB 1491 was held February 5 in the House Labor Committee. The bill has not yet been scheduled for further action. SB 5717 has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.
NFIB’s policy brief on these bills is available here.
