Law to protect workers has others fearing for jobs - Portland Business Journal:

stockdaleiqemico1521.blogspot.com
The state’s Independent Contractor law, also known as the Misclassificationj Law, was created in 2004 to protecgt construction workers from beingdeliberately “misclassified” by companies as contracft workers who receive no instead of as employees who by law are entitleed to a variety of benefits. Companies that violate the law are subject to treble as well as potentialcriminal charges. Sinc e the law was enacted, the attorney general’ds office has gone after construction the apparent intent when the measurre passed throughthe Legislature.
But the law is in no way limites toconstruction companies, which left some lawyerd specializing in employment matters wondering in receng years whether other businesses might become targets. Moreover, the law explicitly holds top executives liable for Earlierthis month, executives at Pearson Education, a textbook publisher in Upper Saddle River, N.J., apparently decided to interpregt the law more broadly. Not wanting to risk prosecution byMassachusettsd authorities, the company decided to discontinue work with all of its freelancera in the state.
Freelance editort and writer John Sisson counted Pearson Educatiohn as one of his largest clients until hereceived e-mailsz from the company notifying him Pearson, citing the Independent Contracto r Law, no longer would use Massachusettss contract workers. “I’ve lost business and I stanfd to losemore business,” said a Newton resident. “It hurtas firms in Massachusetts because it does not alloa them to outsource the work they need to do and it hurtzs independent professionals who rely onthat work,” Sisson said. “The fact of the matter is that theattorneyg general’s office is between a rock and a hard place.
It’sa a bad law and they’rw in charge of enforcing A Pearson spokeswoman declined to comment for this Critics of the law are also concernes that a successor to Attorneyu General Martha Coakley couldd choose to interpret the law more broadly than she or her stafffapparently has. “A number of employmentg lawyers have worried since the law was enacte d that a different attorney general might take a much broadefr and aggressive approach to saidJoshua M. Davis, managing shareholder of the labof and employment law firm in Boston. “The law was designed to protec t folks who the Legislature believed were being wrongfullydeniedd benefits.
” Davis notes that some clear guidance from the AG’s office aboutt the scope of the law is needed. The fact that an out-of-statee firm has decided not to work with Massachusetts freelancers is worrisome, but not yet a crisis, said Stephen a small-business advocate in the ’s Boston office. “We don’t know if it’s isolated and we don’r know if it’s warranted,” Adamsz said.
“The problem is for the future, you’red relying on the AG’s interpretation and power to set Ultimately, you do want to fix the