[T]he House delayed its vote on the independent contractor bill again after a procedural maneuver Monday evening by a staunch opponent.
House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, ended up directing the bill, H.867, to the Legislature’s tax-writing committee because the classification of workers will affect Vermont’s unemployment insurance fund.
When Smith announced that the bill was about to be debated, Rep. Chris Pearson, P-Burlington, called “point of order,” saying the chamber’s rules required the House Ways and Means Committee to review the bill.
On the House floor, it is typical for an opponent of a bill to call “point of order” and ask to send a bill back into a committee to stop lawmakers from voting on the bill. However, the move doesn’t always work.
But a few minutes after meeting with the clerk of the House to discuss Pearson’s request, Smith told Pearson, “It is true that bills that impact the revenues to the state and in particular unemployment insurance bills … have traditionally gone to the Ways and Means Committee.”
Smith said there was a slight difference in rules because the committee of jurisdiction for H.867, House Commerce and Economic Development, had been “relieved” of it Thursday so it could come to the floor for a vote. But he said the bill should have gone to Ways and Means in the first place and sent it back.
H.867 would rewrite the state’s laws on what makes a person an independent contractor versus an employee and make it easier for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors.
Companies pay unemployment taxes to the state for their employees, but independent contractors are responsible for paying their own unemployment taxes. Opponents of the bill said throughout the debate that an increase in independent contractors could drain Vermont’s unemployment insurance fund.
The bill has faced nearly two months of procedural delays, and Democratic leadership in the House said the bill would gut Vermont’s labor laws. On Thursday, supporters of the bill used another procedural method to force a debate on the House floor.
As the Monday vote got closer, opponents of the bill lined up. Rep. Mary Hooper, D-Montpelier, introduced an amendment that would have made the definition of an independent contractor more subjective.
Additionally, two liberal business groups, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and the Women Business Owners issued a joint statement saying that changing the definitions of independent contractors versus employees is too important to happen this late in the session.
“(We) believe the Legislature should not rush into a decision with just a handful of days in the 2016 session,” the statement said. “Any proposal needs the proper time to be considered, and lawmakers should table this issue until the next biennium when they have a full two years to consider a bill.”
“The media and some politicians have framed this debate as one of business interests in support of the bill and labor interests opposed to the change,” the groups said. “This characterization is inaccurate and does a disservice to the variety of viewpoints and concerns that the Vermont business community brings to this debate.”
The Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Northern Vermont, Associated Industries of Vermont, and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce were among the business organizations that supported the original version of H.867. The chamber opposed the Hooper amendment.
“This is an issue that is not going away, and maintaining the status quo is not an option,” the chamber said in a statement. “We will continue to work on finding a reasonable solution with the Ways and Means Committee if they choose to take it up this year.”
