On Victoria Island in Northern Canada there is a series of long finger lakes. In one of the lakes there’s an island. Inside that smaller island, there’s a smaller lake, which contains a still smaller island about a fifth of a mile long. It is the largest known island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island. You can see it here.

I like maps and islands. I like exclaves and enclaves and have lots of questions about islands.

One of my questions is why Rhode Island came to be called that, since it’s not an island. This was particularly confusing to me in elementary school but I have come to terms with it and no longer lose sleep over this.

But now Rhode Island is causing me to lose sleep again.

Why? ABC Tests.

There are bills pending in both Rhode Island and New York that, if passed, would adopt strict ABC Tests for determining who is an employee and who is an independent contractor. The tests would follow the California AB 5/Dynamex model and the Massachusetts model, meaning that a worker providing services would automatically be classified as an employee unless (all 3):

(A) the individual is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for performance of the work and in fact;

(B) the individual performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and

(C) the individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.

As discussed here, Part B is the killer B, the destroyer of most independent contractor relationships.

The bills have not yet passed either house, but both have popular support among legislatures that are heavily Democratic. Both bills seem to have a good chance at passing in 2021.

Keep an eye on these bills.

Meanwhile, Victoria Island is the eighth largest island in the world but has only about 2,100 people. I am not aware of any push among the mostly-Inuit inhabitants to reclassify independent contractors anywhere in Nunavut, but I also don’t feel like I have my finger on the pulse of Nunavut politics. It’s harder to track legislation there.

© 2021 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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