On October 12, the Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey (CCSNJ) President & CEO Christina Renna joined Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald and several members of the General Assembly in announcing a nine-bill package recently introduced to address New Jersey’s healthcare workforce shortage.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers nationwide have departed the field due to burnout, retirements, or career changes causing severe staffing shortages. In her remarks, Ms. Renna stated, “one of the many lessons the pandemic taught us is how quickly a challenge can turn into a crisis,” explaining that there are close to 500,000 healthcare workers in New Jersey, with the industry alone accounting for over $40 billion of the state’s economy. She went on to thank the Majority Leader for his leadership in addressing this issue before the situation becomes more severe.

The nine bills included in the Majority Leader’s package, which the CCSNJ looks forward to supporting, are as follows:

•      A-4613 (Greenwald/Pintor Marin): Renames, extends eligibility, and makes various other changes to the Primary Care Practitioner Loan Redemption Program; appropriates $10 million.
•      A-4614 (Greenwald/Jasey): Modifies the Nursing Faculty Loan Redemption Program.
•      A-4615 (Greenwald/Reynolds-Jackson): Requires the state to foster the development and implementation of graduate medical education programs in behavioral health care.
•      A-4616 (Moriarty/Greenwald): Allows for the passage of the Certified Respiratory Therapist examination to qualify for licensure as a respiratory therapist.
•      A-4617 (DeAngelo/Haider): Requires the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development to identify and recruit unemployed individuals for employment in health care facilities; makes appropriation.
•      A-4618 (Freiman/Murphy): Creates an online job portal for behavioral health care workers, and online internship/externship portal for health care students.
•      A-4619 (Greenwald/Conaway): Codifies and extends the authorization for certain out-of-state health care practitioners and recent graduates of health care training programs to practice in New Jersey.
•      A-4620 (Greenwald/Tully): Provides for enrollment as a NJ FamilyCare provider in conjunction with licensure application; requires health insurance carriers to determine provider enrollment within six months of application.
•      A-4621 (Mosquera/Greenwald): Requires issuance of report on certain information and data on processing of applications for professional and occupational licenses and mandates review of training and call intake in Division of Consumer Affairs.

These bills are expected to receive legislative hearings in the coming months, and the CCSNJ will keep you apprised once scheduled for a vote.

Should you have any questions or comments, please contact Christina Renna at crenna@chambersnj.com.

Federal Changes to Interpretation of Fair Labor Standards Act’s Relating to Independent Contractors

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed a rule revising its interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s classification provision to determine whether or not a worker is an employee or independent contractor.

The proposal would return DOL’s independent contractor classification standard to a multi-factor “totality-of-the-circumstances analysis” framework, a shift from the Trump administration’s 2021 rule that established a test in which these factors were to be separated into a set of “core factors” and “non-core factors.”

Per the proposed rule, the six nonexhaustive factors that the DOL would consider in the assessment of an independent contractor include:

•       Opportunity for profit or loss depending on managerial skill.
•       Investments by the worker and the employer.
•       Degree of permanence of the work relationship.
•       Nature and degree of control.
•     Extent to which the work performed is an integral part of the employer’s business.
•       Skill and initiative.

The DOL will accept comments from stakeholders for 45 days once the proposal is published in the Federal Register.

To read the DOL press release, click here.

Should you have any questions or comments, please contact Christina Renna at crenna@chambersnj.com.