ASA Supports DOL Proposal Protecting Independent Contractor Status for Financial Professionals

WASHINGTON – The American Securities Association (ASA) today submitted a comment letter to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) expressing strong support for the Department's proposed rule addressing employee or independent contractor classification.

"Independent financial professionals have built thriving businesses serving Main Street Americans for over a century, and ASA applauds the DOL for proposing a way forward that provides the maximum amount of flexibility for workers and retirees," said ASA Chief Legal Officer Jessica Giroux. "The economic reality test recognizes what courts have long understood: these are hardworking entrepreneurs, and the law should reflect that."

"The two-core-factor approach properly focuses the analysis on the factors most probative of economic independence: control over work and opportunity for profit or loss. The clarification that compliance with legal and regulatory requirements does not constitute employer-type control is particularly important for highly regulated industries like financial services," Giroux wrote in the letter.

More than half a million people work as independent contractors in financial services, owning and operating approximately 130,000 independent financial advisory and brokerage firms that collectively employ an additional 330,000 workers. 

To read ASA's full letter, click here.

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The American Securities Association (ASA) represents the retail and institutional capital markets interests of regional financial services firms who provide Main Street businesses with access to capital and advise hardworking Americans how to create and preserve wealth. ASA’s mission is to promote trust and confidence among investors, facilitate capital formation, and support efficient and competitively balanced capital markets. This mission advances financial independence, stimulates job creation, and increases prosperity. The ASA has a geographically diverse membership of almost one hundred members that spans the Heartland, Southwest, Southeast, Atlantic, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States.