Independent contractors

New Jersey Revives the Fight To Reclassify Gig Workers as Employees

California notoriously fought to do the same, which led to a slew of exemptions and job declines.

C. Jarrett Dieterle | 8.15.2026 7:00 AM

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(Adani Samat/Midjourney)

For close to a decade, the political left has sought to reclassify independent contractors and gig workers as full-scale employees. Most notably, there was the notorious showdown over the issue in California, after which the push generally seemed to peter out in favor of other regulatory tactics. But New Jersey is now resuscitating that reclassification campaign by enacting a new rule to crack down on gig work.

The broader fight can in some sense be traced to a 2018 decision from the California Supreme Court, which controversially ruled that delivery drivers in the Golden State had been misclassified as independent contractors. Instead, the court said, they should be seen as full-scale employees. As the basis of its holding, the court relied on a strict version of what's known as the ABC Test for worker classification, which is a legal standard that makes it highly difficult to qualify as an independent contractor under the law.

A year later, California passed its notorious A.B. 5 bill, which extended the decision to other industries. The ABC Test has multiple prongs, but the most significant one is usually prong "B," which requires that a worker must perform work "outside the company's usual course of business" in order........

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