LB 229 — Exclude marketplace network contractors working for marketplace network platforms from the Employment Security Law

LB229 LB229 2025 LEGISLATURELEGISLATIVE OFBILL NEBRASKA229 ONEApproved HUNDREDby NINTHthe LEGISLATUREGovernor FIRSTMarch SESSION11, LEGISLATIVE2025 BILL 229 FINAL READING   Introduced by Hallstrom, 1.

Read  firstA timeBILL JanuaryFOR 14,AN 2025ACT Committee:relating to the Employment Security Law;

Business and Labor A BILL FOR AN ACT relating to the Employment Security Law;

Be it enacted by the people of the State of Nebraska, -1- LB229 LB229 2025 Section 1.

-2- LB229 LB229 2025 (b) Services of an individual wherever performed within the United States or Canada if (i) such service is not covered under the employment compensation law of any other state or Canada and (ii) the place from which the service is directed or controlled is in this state;

-3- LB229 LB229 2025 (4)(a) Service performed in the employ of this state or any political subdivision thereof or any instrumentality of any one or more of the foregoing or any instrumentality which is wholly owned by this state and one or more other states or political subdivisions, or any service performed in the employ of any instrumentality of this state or of any political subdivision thereof and one or more other states or political subdivisions if such service is excluded from employment as defined in the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, as -1- LB229 LB229 2025 amended, solely by reason of 26 U.S.C.

(A) Any individual who is a member of a crew furnished by a crew -4- LB229 LB229 2025 leader to perform services in agricultural labor for any other person shall be treated as an employee of such crew leader if such crew leader holds a valid certificate of registration under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, as amended, 29 U.S.C.

(5) Services performed by an individual for wages, including wages received under a contract of hire, shall be deemed to be employment unless it is shown to the satisfaction of the commissioner that (a) such individual has been and will continue to be free from control or direction over the performance of such services, both under his or her contract of service and in fact, (b) such service is either outside the -5- LB229 LB229 2025 usual course of the business for which such service is performed or such service is performed outside of all the places of business of the enterprise for which such service is performed, and (c) such individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business.

(c) Service not in the course of the employer's trade or business performed in any calendar quarter by an employee, unless the cash remuneration paid for such service is fifty dollars or more and such service is performed by an individual who is regularly employed by such employer to perform such service and, for the purposes of this subdivision, an individual shall be deemed to be regularly employed by an employer during a calendar quarter only if (i) on each of some twenty-twenty-four four days during such quarter such individual performs for such employer for some portion of the day service not in the course of the employer's trade or business, or (ii) such individual was regularly employed, as determined under subdivision (c)(i) of this subdivision, by such employer in the performance of such service during the preceding calendar quarter;

(d) Service performed by an individual in the employ of his or her son, daughter, or spouse and service performed by a child under the age of twenty-onetwenty- one in the employ of his or her father or mother;

(e) Service performed in the employ of the United States Government or an instrumentality of the United States immune under the Constitution of the United States from the contributions imposed by sections 48-648 -6- LB229 LB229 2025 and 48-649 to 48-649.04, except that, to the extent that the Congress of the United States shall permit states to require any instrumentalities of the United States to make payments into an unemployment fund under a state unemployment compensation act, all of the Employment Security Law shall be applicable to such -2- LB229 LB229 2025 instrumentalities and to services performed for such instrumentalities in the same manner, to the same extent, and on the same terms as to all other employers, individuals, and services, except that if this state is not certified for any year by the Secretary of Labor of the United States under section 3304 of the Internal Revenue Code as defined in section 49-801.01, the payments required of such instrumentalities with respect to such year shall be refunded by the commissioner from the fund in the same manner and within the same period as is provided in section 48-660, with respect to contributions erroneously collected;

-7- LB229 LB229 2025 (ii) By a duly ordained, commissioned, or licensed minister of a church in the exercise of his or her ministry or by a member of a religious order in the exercise of the duties required by such order;

(j) Service performed in the employ of a school, college, or university, if such service is performed (i) by a student who is enrolled, regularly attending classes at, and working for such school, college, or university pursuant to a financial assistance arrangement with such school, college, or university or (ii) by the spouse of such student, if such spouse is advised, at the time such spouse commences to perform such service, that (A) the employment of such spouse to perform -8- LB229 LB229 2025 such service is provided under a program to provide financial assistance to such student by such school, college, or university and (B) such employment will not be covered by any program of unemployment insurance;

(o) Service performed by an individual who is enrolled at a nonprofit or public educational institution which normally maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and normally has a regularly organized body of students in attendance at the place where its educational -9- LB229 LB229 2025 activities are carried on, as a -3- LB229 LB229 2025 student in a full-time program, taken for credit at such institution, which combines academic instruction with work experience, if such service is an integral part of such program, and such institution has so certified to the employer, except that this subdivision shall not apply to service performed in a program established for or on behalf of an employer or a group of employers;

(A) Engaged in the trade or business of selling or soliciting the sale of consumer products or services to any buyer on a buy-sell basis or a deposit-commissiondeposit- commission basis for resale, by the buyer or any other person, -10- LB229 LB229 2025 in the home or otherwise than in a permanent retail establishment;

(A) The marketplace network contractor and marketplace network platform agree in writing that the marketplace network contractor is an independent contractor and not an employee of the marketplace network -11- LB229 LB229 2025 platform;

and (B) Marketplace network platform means a person that maintains a digital network to facilitate services by marketplace network contractors to individuals or entities seeking those services, and accepts requests from the -4- LB229 LB229 2025 public only through the platform's digital network or mobile application, and not by telephone, facsimile, or in-person at a retail location.

-12- LB229 LB229 2025 (A) For any employer described in subdivision (4)(a) or (4)(b) of this section or in section 48-603.01;

Original section 48-604, Reissue Revised Statutes of -13- LB229 LB229 2025 Nebraska, is repealed.

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