(The Center Square) – New Jersey may soon follow California’s lead in a reinterpretation of its ABC test that would force as many as 1.7 million independent contractors to lose their self-employed status while increasing the amount of workers that can be “unionized.”

Director of Independent Women’s Center for Economic Opportunity Patrice Onwuka told The Center Square that “New Jersey is proposing to alter its employment test that determines whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor.”

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Onwuka said that “instead of greater clarity, simplicity, and certainty, the NJ Department of Labor is introducing new uncertainty, confusion, and complexity” with this ABC test.

The ABC test would go from three one-sentence factors that must be met to prove independent contractor status to three factors each burdened by numerous sub-factors or, as shown in an Independent Women news release.

New Jersey’s “proposed interpretation creates new hurdles for freelancers, self-employed people, and gig workers to keep their independent status,” Onwuka told The Center Square.

According to Independent Women’s news release, as many as 1.7 million New Jersey “freelancers, entrepreneurs, and gig workers” will have to “abandon self-employment.”

“This is another mass reclassification effort to force people out of preferred flexible work into traditional 9-to-5 jobs, which are unionizable,” Onwuka said.

Onwuka told The Center Square that New Jersey is “copycatting” the same issue that took place in California a few years ago and “will reap California’s disastrous results.”

“In 2019, the California legislature passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), which codified a stringent ABC test,” Onwuka said. “Instead of businesses hiring their reclassified contractors, freelancers lost income, contracts, and livelihoods for freelancers in over 600 occupations.”

“Self-employment fell by 10.5%, and overall employment fell by 4.4%, according to research by the Mercatus Center,” Onwuka said.

From unemployed Santa Clauses to small business owners “who hired other stay-at-home moms” seeing their businesses threatened, AB5 took its toll on the Golden State,” Onwuka said.

Similar legislation failed in New Jersey in 2019, so that “what policymakers could not enact through the law, they’re now seeking to advance through regulation,” according to the Independent Women news release.

Onwuka stressed specifically to The Center Square the effect New Jersey’s ABC test changes would have on women.

“Women are going to be harmed by losing flexible options that allow them to stay attached to the workforce while balancing other priorities,” Onwuka said.

“Close to half of the over 70 million freelancers in this country are female,” Onwuka said. “Women balance earning income while raising children, caregiving for aging parents, managing their own health issues, and pursuing education.”

For many women, it is “impossible to work on a 9-to-5 schedule or on-site in a workplace,” Onwuka said.

Onwuka said that “if women in New Jersey are no longer classified as independent contractors through their small businesses and gigs, many will stop working altogether, creating new challenges and burdens for the state.”

When asked what can be done to stop the finalization of New Jersey’s proposed changes, Onwuka said that the state’s Department of Labor “must hear from New Jersey residents that they oppose this rule, and it should be withdrawn.”

The 60-day commenting period for the regulation ends on August 6, according to Onwuka.

Onwuka informed The Center Square that Independent Women’s Voice also has an action center where New Jerseyans “can submit comments and add their own personal stories of being an independent contractor.”

In the end, Onwuka told The Center Square that “no one should be forced into a 9-to-5 job.”

“Policymakers and activists on the left believe that traditional jobs are the only good jobs,” Onwuka said.

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“Reclassification” such as what New Jersey is doing “is an effort to get more people into traditional jobs to expand the pool of workers that can be unionized,” Onwuka said.

“Americans deserve the freedom to choose when, where, how, and for whom to work,” Onwuka said. “This is worker freedom.”