On March 25, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce passed the ABC-supported H.J. Res. 116, the Congressional Review Act resolution to nullify the U.S. Department of Labor’s independent contractor final rule, in a 21-13 vote with all Republicans present voting in support.

Ahead of the markup, ABC sent a letter in support of the resolution and urged committee members to report it for a full House vote. “The proposal creates an ambiguous and difficult-to-interpret standard under which employers will be forced to guess which factors will be more important in the determination and how to analyze the facts of their contractual relationships under multiple factors,” the letter noted. “This confusion will lead to more litigation, as employers and workers alike will not understand who qualifies as independent contractors.”

On Jan. 9, the DOL announced the final rule on Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which rescinds the ABC-supported 2021 final rule and replaces it with a confusing multifactor analysis to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. On March 5, ABC, its Southeast Texas chapter, the Coalition for Workforce Innovation, the Financial Services Institute, the American Trucking Associations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation and the National Federation of Independent Business filed an amended complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas arguing that the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the Fair Labor Standards Act final rule is unlawful and a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. The district court will review the complaint and response from the U.S. Department of Justice. The final rule went into effect on March 11. 

Learn more about the 2024 final rule. Also, watch the ABC members-only archived webinar in the Academy, “Learn What the DOL's Final Independent Contractor Rule Means for ABC Members.”