The Senate Labor Law Committee met today to review three bills that will make it even easier for the NJ Department of Labor to find employers liable for employee misclassification. The Senate and Assembly versions of these pieces of legislation were filed last week and appear to be fast-tracked for speedy passage.
The three bills being heard are as follows:
S3920 concerns enforcement of employee misclassification and stop-work order laws. The bill will expand the ability of the Department of Labor to investigate misclassification by allowing them to utilize a “designee, authorized representative, or agent acting on behalf of the commissioner” to enforce misclassification laws and stop-work orders.
S3921 appropriates $1 million from a General Fund to create an “Office of Strategic Enforcement and Compliance” at the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, to “oversee and coordinate across the divisions of the Department” and, when necessary, between the Department and other State agencies and entities, strategic enforcement of State wage, benefit and tax laws, as deemed appropriate by the Commissioner.
S3922 is intended to streamline the identification of employee misclassification, making it easier to go after employers who deliberately misclassify employees to avoid paying insurance premiums, making such actions a violation of the New Jersey Insurance Fraud Prevention Act.
We will be following these bills and will keep you posted on any updates as they become available. Stay tuned.
