https://www.cato.org/blog/dols-independent-contracting-proposal-endangers-both-freedom-economic-health

This rule would take the disaster that is California’s A.B. 5 and spread the misery nationwide. And it is being fraudulently advertised as making easier for independent contractors to become employees when it reality it FORCES that status on independent contractors.

If this rule passes it will have disastrous results and could wipe out many industries.

Most independent contractors are in that status by CHOICE. For example, I have two extended family members who are free lance owner operators that don’t work for any trucking company, but instead use load boards to conduct business. Both of them went out of their way to buy their tractors and become O.O.s. Neither has the slightest desire to be an inhouse employee. But just as A.B. 5 has done in California, this rule could force that status on them.

https://www.regulations.gov/document/WHD-2022-0003-0001/comment

Public commenting page for this odious rule. Public commenting is open until November 28.

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Government knows best. Just ask any forum prog/lib.

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If they don’t run under their own numbers, they are employees. They can pretend they’re not and roleplay as their own boss but insurance is god.

Another ■■■■ law by petulant children who have zero understanding of the consequences of the crap they advocate.

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Owner operators associated with companies lease their power unit to the contracting company. They are not driving a company owned truck. The pay for their own fuel, own insurance, all of the maintenance on their truck, their own payroll taxes and their own benefits. They negotiate their assignment ahead of time with the company. The owner operators that aren’t associated with a company use freight brokers to get loads.

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If they’re not running their own numbers, they pay for the boss’s insurances. The boss also keeps track of their drug tests, collects their DOT inspection reports, handles their driver qualification files, collects their logs, etc.

How can someone think they’re not an employee when all administrative responsibility for running a truck goes through someone who is supposedly not their boss? How can anyone pretend they’re not an employee when their supposed customer collects a urine sample before any contracting can happen?

Without MC numbers, a 1099 truck driver is just someone who brings their own expensive depreciating asset to work. They’re getting fleeced out of employee protections, and the actual boss is likely commiting fraud.

So an owner operator shouldn’t be able to build economy of scale into his business decisions. Most owner operators hire services to handle these functions. Your argument seems to be that they shouldn’t be able to decide for themselves the most economical way to do this, which will sometimes be letting the contracting company provide the service, for a fee. But of course arrogant mommy government knows better than the individual on a case by case basis.

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I don’t think you have the slightest idea what a free lance owner operator is. They get loads from freight brokers (which I referred to above by the colloquial term of load boards). They drop that load and check the load boards for a pickup nearest their current location.

And so forth.

They have ZERO association with ANY trucking firm.

And they chose this business model voluntarily and it works to their advantage. If a trucker wants to be an employee, that is easy. Just sign up with a trucking company as an employee.

No person in history has ever been forced to be an owner operator, it is a choice 100% freely made and the government should mind its own ■■■■■■■ business.

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My argument is that corner-cutting 1099 carriers deserve everything that’s coming to them with this rule.

I don’t care about the driver. They’re taking a shortcut that leaves their fragile “business” more vulnerable than doing things the proper way. They have use as bad examples.

What can these “contractors” actually do that a proper W2 owner-operator couldn’t?

Run their own life like every private business owner can do.

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They have to have an association with a trucking firm to get freight from a broker. If it’s a firm they own themselves, the rule won’t effect them.

If they’re running under LandStar’s authority, for example, then they’re supposed to be W2 employees of LandStar. 1099 under someone else’s numbers is not a legitimate business.

They can do that without the fraud. W2 doesn’t suddenly give the company any more power over you than a 1099

Is there anything inherently restrictive about a W2 that stops current 1099 drivers from picking their own loads and operating exactly as they are now?

I read the article, and excuse my ignorance, but what exactly does this do to hurt the independent owner operators? What is the downside as opposed to remaining independent?

It is not fraud

Centgov would prefer if everybody was a w2 employee.

Easier for them to collect their taxes.

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Those owner operators have truck notes. When you become a company driver (W2 employee), you drive company equipment. The owner operator will make 3-4 times the pay per loaded mile that the company driver will make, but much of that goes to fuel, maintenance, insurance and note service. You make them company drivers, they won’t make the same pay. While the fuel and maintenance will go away when that tractor is idled, the insurance and note service will continue. That former owner operator is still responsible to the financial entity that financed the purchase of that equipment, And a financed vehicle, including a commercial vehicle is required to carry insurance.

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There is nothing stopping a driver from bringing his own truck on under a W2.

A restriction against W2 owners does not exist in black and white anywhere in U.S. law or regulation.

You just showed that you know nothing about the trucking industry. No company allows W2 employees to drive anything but company provided equipment. There are temp companies that lease drivers to transportation companies, but temp companies have no equipment.,

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Looks like that’s about to change. Landstarve and its ilk can figure out how to run their business the right way now. Or close. Both are acceptable.

There is no restriction against W2 owners. 1099 driver’s acceptable of habitual fraud does not create a rule.