Trucking news and briefs for Wednesday, May 5, 2021:
Labor Dept. officially withdraws rule to define independent contractor within FLSA
The Department of Labor is officially withdrawing a late-Trump-era rulemaking that would have clarified the definition of what it means to be an independent contractor within the Fair Labor Standards Act. Because the rule never took effect, owner-operators will see no changes as a result of the rule's withdrawal.
DOL published the final rule on Jan. 7, shortly before the end of Trump’s presidency. Just days prior to the rule’s publication, the incoming Biden administration specifically mentioned the independent contractor rule as one of Trump’s “midnight regulations” that would be halted.
The independent contractor rule would have used five economic-reality factors to make determinations as to whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. Two of those factors – the nature and degree of the worker’s control over the work and the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss – would have been the two “core” factors for determining a worker’s classification and carried greater weight than the other three factors.
[Related: Shorter 14-hour pauses, DOL’s independent contractor ruling on Biden’s early scratch list]
The other factors included the amount of skill required for the work; the degree of permanence of the working relationship between the worker and the potential employer; and whether the work is part of an integrated unit of production.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association expressed disappointment in the withdrawal, which the group says “would have provided owner-operators additional certainty about their worker classification status.” OOIDA adds that it believes under the rule, owner-operators could have generally continued working under their existing arrangements with carriers without fear of being reclassified as employees.
