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Workers advocates press committee to harmonize employee definitions across state laws
Summary
Greater Boston Legal Services, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and other witnesses urged the committee to align the employee-status tests in unemployment, wage-and-hour and PFML statutes to reduce misclassification and improve access to benefits.
A coalition of legal aid and labor organizations told the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development that small but consequential wording differences across state statutes create legal uncertainty and deny eligible workers benefits.
Jason Salgado, a staff attorney in the employment law unit at Greater Boston Legal Services, testified in support of S.1338 and H.2141, which he said would align the employee-status test used by the Department of Unemployment Assistance with the nearly identical test in the Commonwealth's wage-and-hour laws. "These bills would help address the pervasive issue of employee misclassification, which deprives hundreds of thousands of workers across the Commonwealth fundamental workplace rights," Salgado said, listing minimum wage, overtime, earned sick time, workers' compensation and unemployment insurance.
Lindsay Kenny, legislative director for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, told the committee differences in the so-called ABC test between Chapter 149 and Chapter 151A produce inconsistent outcomes: "While a worker might be considered an employee by the attorney general's office for purposes of a wage theft claim, that same employee might be classed as an independent contractor by the Department of Unemployment Assistance, and therefore ineligible to collect unemployment insurance benefits."
Witnesses said harmonization would reduce delays, administrative burden and litigation, help workers access UI and PFML benefits more quickly, and shore up payroll contributions the Commonwealth relies on. Salgado said correcting misclassification takes months or years and cited the Commonwealth's projected unemployment-insurance trust fund pressures, arguing that recovering unpaid contributions is important for fiscal stability.
Employers' concerns were represented briefly in later testimony on related workforce bills (some employer groups favored apprenticeship measures and raised concerns on other bills). At the hearing there was no committee vote; witnesses asked the committee to report S.1338/H.2141 favorably.
