WASHINGTON – Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) today served a subpoena on the Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Julie Su, seeking information about the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to undercut the livelihoods of tens of millions of Americans who choose to work as independent contractors.
The Biden-Harris administration has repeatedly claimed that “worker misclassification” is rampant and harming workers but has failed to provide the Committee with necessary data to support that claim. The subpoena comes after months of attempts to clarify what evidence DOL is using to justify changing its implementation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) through a final rule titled, “Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the [FLSA],” which went into effect in March.
In the subpoena cover letter, Foxx writes: “The Committee on Education and the Workforce (Committee) is continuing to conduct oversight and seek information about the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to eliminate the independent contractor model and classify as many workers as possible as employees—a shift that would drastically increase the federal government’s control over the American workforce.”
The subpoena requests the following:
The total number of instances of misclassification that DOL inspectors have found, including the occupations of those involved;
The total number of misclassification enforcement investigations initiated, including the industry of those involved; and
The total number of misclassification enforcement investigations in which DOL has collaborated with the National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Trade Commission, respectively.
