A bill in the New Jersey legislature could mean trouble for freelance writers. It bans freelance contract work that doesn’t meet all of the following requirements:

a. The individual has been and will continue to be free from control or direction over the performance of the service, both under the individual’s contract of service and in fact; and

b. The individual’s service is either outside the usual course of the business for which that service is performed; and

c. The individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.

What does this mean for writers who work through online services like WriterAccess and Verblio? Criterion (a) shouldn’t be much of a problem. Criterion (c) could be problematic for people just getting started or submitting articles on an occasional basis. How much writing do you have to do for money before you’re “customarily” doing it?

The sticky one is (b). It isn’t even grammatical (the version pasted here is what’s available on November 21). There’s an “either” with no “or.” Further on it’s made clear that this is intentional; it adapts some existing language but omits the provision that working from home makes it OK.
Senator Sweeney’s disregard for grammar matches his contempt for writers. It looks as if all New Jersey freelancers who work for writing sites would be booted out of work.

This is similar to the California bill I discussed earlier on this blog, but it may be worse. The latter has some safe harbor provisions for writers.

Politicians don’t like people who run their own businesses. It’s much harder to control them than to control employees.

There’s a discussion of the bill on Reason.com. It focuses on services like Uber and Lyft and contracted truck drivers. People in many areas will be affected.