Monday, June 21, 2010

UPDATE ON MA INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR LEGISLATION

House Bill 1844, the bill we have been following to change the MA Independent Contractor Law, came out of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development with a positive reading.

The bill, now known as House Bill 4748, has new wording that is exactly the same as Senator McGee’s Amendment 260 to the budget (see the text of the bill here or refer to our post on June 7). The bill was presented by Rep. Coakley-Rivera (the co-chair of the Labor and Workforce Committee). This bill is now with a new committee, the House Committee on Ways and Means.

There are several issues to keep in mind regarding this new legislation:

1) The Legislature is busy, with the budget and the casino bill, so it is unclear whether this bill will get any attention before the end of the current session (July 30th). We will keep you posted on what we hear. We urge you to keep calling your representatives to make sure they know this issue is a priority.

2) The wording in the new legislation will work for some freelancers, but it will certainly not work for all. We were told that the new language is only a beginning and that the bill can still be amended. Our goal is to continue to talk with the representatives on the House Committee on Way and Means to figure out if we can further revise the current language and if so how.

Let us know your feelings on the new language by leaving a comment.

More to come . . .

No comments:

Post a Comment