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After Judge’s Gig Worker Ruling, Advocates Want Protections for Contract Nurses, Too

McKenzie Young is a traveling nurse from California who works in Hawaii. She gets placements through an agency that connects her to temporary jobs around the state and country. Her assignments can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to months at a time. When Young returns to the mainland, she plans to sign up on a nursing placement app for shorter-term freelance nurses who get paid by picking up shifts at nearby medical facilities.

Published

3 years ago

April 7, 2023

Oakland Post

Some advocates say hospitals should classify nurses they hire through apps as employees, not as contractors. Photo courtesy of CBM

By Edward Henderson
California Black Media

When Young returns to the mainland, she plans to sign up on a nursing placement app for shorter-term freelance nurses who get paid by picking up shifts at nearby medical facilities.

Currently, her gig in Hawaii pays Young by the hour. She gets medical insurance through the hospital to which she is assigned, and she opts to pay out-of-pocket for her own individualized retirement plan.

“If you can do it smart that way and make sure you’re giving what you should and set up the accounts you need, I can put even more into my retirement because I’m making more,” Young said. “It’s hard going back to (being on) staff.”

Young says more nurses would opt for freelance work if they knew how flexible and lucrative it can be. And because there is a nursing shortage, she never has to worry about not finding temporary assignments.

As more nurses like Young enter the gig economy seeking higher pay rates and more control over their work schedules, some advocates assert that hospitals that contract nurses often misclassify them as independent contractors, a practice that comes with “tremendous legal and regulatory risks.”

“When workers are misclassified as independent contractors, there is a damaging domino effect that impacts all levels of our economy. In this case, caretakers were systematically denied minimum wage, overtime and other legally required working conditions,” said California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower.

Nurses have access to various apps that help them find work. Just like dating apps, many of these apps enable users to browse through job options by scrolling or swiping until they find a suitable job, facility and working hours.

Within the spectrum of these healthcare staffing apps, some provide 1099 workers who are farmed out as independent contractors. Other companies like IntelyCare and ShiftMed hire healthcare staff as W-2 employees, who are eligible for benefits not accorded to 1099 workers.

On March 13, California Courts of Appeal Justices ruled that Proposition 22 (a 2020 ballot measure that allowed Lyft, Uber and other gig economy platforms to classify their workers as independent contractors rather than employees) is constitutional.

Executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, issued a press release speaking out against the court’s decision.

“Today the Appeals Court chose to stand with powerful corporations over working people, allowing companies to buy their way out of our state’s labor laws and undermine our state Constitution,” Gonzalez Fletcher said. “Our system is broken. It would be an understatement to say we are disappointed by this decision.”

Gonzalez Fletcher, who, as an Assemblymember authored Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), which established stricter criteria for classifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees, has been a vocal supporter of legislation prohibiting companies from hiring freelance workers to avoid paying them benefits they are entitled to under California’s labor laws.

The distinction between being an employee and independent contractor is very important, advocates like Gonzalez Fletcher point out.

Employees have the right to benefits including sick and family leave, unemployment benefits, minimum wage and more.

With 36% of workers in the U.S. in the gig economy, the battle for these distinctions continues to rage on with both sides contesting court decisions made in the other’s favor.

This past year home healthcare placement agencies were fined $1.8 million by the California Labor Commissioner’s Office for misclassifying 66 workers.

Healthcare app-based staffing company CareRev was sued for misclassifying workers who signed up on the app as contractors.

Advocates point out that the healthcare industry is more regulated than the rideshare industry.

“Any nurse who walks into a long-term care or memory care facility will have a long list of rules and protocols that need to be followed. They are often given access badges, a work schedule, a patient list, and time slots for medication, food, or exercise rotation,” reads a press release that advocates published describing how companies are benefitting from hiring contract nurses and not paying them the benefits that full-time employees must receive by law.

So far, no bill has been introduced in the California Legislature to regulate health care industry staffing apps, but advocates say the problems they are posing will hurt health care workers and the industry writ large.

“Misclassification opens the door for joint employer liability and legal wage and hour disputes,” advocates added in the press release.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

1 day ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

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2 days ago

March 1, 2026

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

4 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke