Bill Hinchberger

Even by this ridiculously slow pace of ditching ideas our society has outgrown, we should have phased out the ABC Test for independent contractors in 1980

The PRO Act would inject the freelance-busting ABC Test regulatory language into federal law The California version of the ABC Test. With the New Jersey interpretation It’s a test constructed and interpreted in ways that virtually nobody can ever pass it

In December 2025, I wrote a Substack linking to a report that U.S. Congressman Donald Norcross, D-N.J., co-wrote. This report, which previously had gone largely unnoticed, laid out policy ideas for trying to grow unions. It included lists of people who attended meetings to discuss these ideas, including in New Jersey. The ideas included sectoral bargaining, which the report called "admittedly radically different." A sectoral bargaining bill was just introduced in New Jersey. I wrote about that bill on October 5 and checked before I published that the link to the Norcross report still existed. It did. I linked to it again on that day. today is October 19. The link to the Norcross report no longer works. Not to worry, friends--I anticipated that move and downloaded the whole PDF of the report just in case anybody tried to disappear it. I will publish it on my Substack. They can't make it vanish.

Look at how many professions (which seem to include freelance writers and editors like me) the Senate Labor Committee Chairman now wants to protect from the ABC Test rule After NJDOL and Governor Sherrill just told us all that nothing changed and we don't have to worry

Surprisingly big response to today's Substack Even with 99% public opposition to New Jersey's ABC Test rule, there seems somehow to be even *more* outrage about this new bill that would allow union representation without giving most people a vote on whether to unionize

“Michele Siekerka, president and CEO of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, said lawmakers could send an immediate signal to employers by revisiting new independent-contractor regulations…” jerseyvindicator.org/2026/10…

“We have reported in prior blog posts this year on IC misclassification lawsuits by health care, AI, and security workers, suggesting that plaintiffs’ lawyers view these three business sectors as a fertile source for class action recoveries.” independentcontractorcomplia…

Responses are still coming in to yesterday's Substack, and people seem stunned that this is really happening Yes, it's happening. And to make it clear exactly what's happening, I'm coining a new term: "no-vote unions" It's an easier way to understand the concept of "sectoral bargaining," which is government giving unions a way to represent all workers in an industry without most of the workers ever voting to join As this New Jersey bill would do freelancebusting.com/p/from-…

A staffer for @GovSherrillNJ just told me they're getting hundreds of calls about the independent-contractor rule today Didn't ask my name I asked what good it's doing me to call if she's not even going to take my name She hung up on me

77% of the truck drivers at the Port of NY&NJ are independent contractors Governor Sherrill ignored all the testimony about how her looming ABC Test rule will cripple the port and disrupt the supply chain

More lawmakers--including a lot of top Democrats--have written letters asking @GovSherrillNJ to stop her Labor Department's independent-contractor rule from taking effect October 1

CLAIMS OF MISINFORMATION—RIGHT ON SCHEDULE HERE IN NEW JERSEY IN 2019, New Jersey Senate President/union official Steve Sweeney pushed an ABC Test bill, trying to copy California’s catastrophic ABC Test law Masses of independent contractors and the business community in New Jersey cried foul Sweeney then wrote an op-ed comparing us freelancers to Russian disinformation agents for saying New Jersey was trying to copy California’s ABC Test law The State recently acknowledged that’s *exactly* what Sweeney was trying to do. In other words, he smeared us in the press to try and protect his ABC Test lie. At the time, New Jersey AFL-CIO boss Charles Wowkanech was in the press too, urging the Legislature to pass the ABC Test bill Now it’s seven years later, and we have acting Labor Commissioner Kevin Jarvis—a former New Jersey AFL-CIO employee—crying misinformation in the press, again amid widespread public outcry that this ABC Test rulemaking is wrong And this time there’s a new layer: NJDOL is saying it’s doing this ABC Test rulemaking because of a court ruling The bit about the courts feels new in New Jersey, but it’s still the same AFL-CIO playbook—exactly what California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez/now head of the AFL-CIO out there said when she put California’s ABC Test law through. She swore, we’re just codifying this ABC Test because of a court ruling That also turned out to be a lie. Her law codified a broad change of the ABC Test’s application, disastrous for independent contractors Read carefully how New Jersey acting Commissioner Jarvis parses his words in the press today Jarvis: “This is not a new test.” ➡️ True, the ABC Test is old—but the way it’s being interpreted and applied is new. Just like computers are old, but the way AI is supercharging them is new. The ABC Test is being weaponized so no independent contractors can pass it, as California proved and as numerous attorneys made clear in public comments here in New Jersey Jarvis: “This is not a change in enforcement.” ➡️ Likely true—and also likely an admission, not a reassurance. As testimony and public comments keep making clear, NJDOL has been acting unreasonably with its interpretations and enforcement actions around the ABC Test for a long time. That’s why the first version of NJDOL’s proposed ABC Test rule—which the agency also said merely codified what they’ve been doing—was so shocking that top New Jersey Senate committee chairmen said it appeared to be outside the bounds of statute and case law, as policy experts called it unprecedented in the nation Jarvis: “The reason the regulations were adopted is because the New Jersey Supreme Court recommended the department exercise its regulatory authority.” ➡️ True, there is a footnote in a court case saying NJDOL should clarify what it’s doing—but that still doesn’t make what the agency is doing appropriate or reasonable with the ABC Test. This entire rulemaking process has revealed precisely the opposite. It has revealed just how rogue NJDOL has gone, and how few independent contractors are even filing paperwork with the agency (just 700 each year on average, almost all from a single industry, per recent testimony). The AFL-CIO’s entire narrative about widespread employee misclassification across all kinds of industries as the reason we need this ABC Test crackdown on independent contracting is now in peril, because of everything this rulemaking process has brought to light And now, with the ABC Test rulemaking on the ropes, Jarvis is crying misinformation in the press, the same way Sweeney did when his ABC Test bill was about to crash and burn in 2019 Attacking the messengers is the only move that people have left when they can’t win a debate on the facts New Jersey’s Legislature must stop this ABC Test rule from taking effect October 1—and then ensure this kind of Big Labor attack on the smallest of small business owners can never, ever happen again newjerseymonitor.com/2026/09…

So a lawyer from California who once worked for the Economic Policy Institute (chaired by the head of the AFL-CIO) wrote the PRO Act This is my shocked face 🙄 Please, California, protect entrepreneurs. Vote for her opponent for Congress... theguardian.com/us-news/2026…

You are so right about not paying attention I think that if more people understood the IC policy battle in relation to capitalism, how businesses function and the American Dream, and why we are all fighting so hard to keep this freedom to be our own bosses, they would have seen sooner that this well-organized DSA was aligning with the powerful left-wing unions and making unprecedented demands on the Democrats in exchange for campaign support The reality was the AFL-CIO telling Dems to crush the independent contractors or get zero campaign support. It was their number-one demand in New Jersey from back in 2019, the Dems told me But the Lorenas of the world convinced the masses it’s just about Uber. Plus, most people dream of being their own bosses but have only ever been employees So most people didn’t understand how radical this desire to crush self-employment is, and why it must be defeated Now we have these DSA candidates openly campaigning on “every worker in a union.” And I still think most people won’t realize how serious the socialists are about this goal until people who don’t want to join are forced to join themselves

Either the socialists are hate-reading this Substack that I published last week, or it really struck a nerve with everybody else Back-end analytics are going through the roof freelancebusting.com/p/rise-…