Other Health Care Workers
Motor-carrier drivers could qualify as contractors in Ohio
The bill turns on ownership or a bona fide lease, plus a written contract saying the job is independent contractor work. Those details can change pay rules and how much control a carrier keeps over the work.
Ohio is considering a narrower employment test for people hauling property for motor carriers. If the listed conditions are met, the worker would fall outside employee status for some state laws.
- Some app-booked health care shifts could be treated as nonemployee work.
- The bill uses a detailed test, not a blanket exemption.
- Overtime and other job protections can hinge on the label.
- Available vote records show the bill advanced without recorded no votes.
- For nurses, aides and other health care workers picking up shifts through apps in Ohio, the label on the job can shape pay, overtime and legal responsibility
For nurses, aides and other health care workers picking up shifts through apps in Ohio, the label on the job can shape pay, overtime and legal responsibility. A bill from Republican Sen. Susan Manchester would say some of those workers are not employees of a health care worker platform or a health care facility for specified laws, but only when the bill’s conditions are met.
The measure amends sections 4121.01 and 4113.87 of the Revised Code, putting the question directly into Ohio’s wage-and-hour framework. That matters because employee status is one of the switches that can change who owes overtime and how much control a platform or facility can exercise over the work.
A checklist, not a blanket pass
The bill does not read like a broad declaration that every app-booked shift is outside employment law. It sets up a factor-based test for when the carveout applies, which means the legal label turns on the details of the arrangement rather than the fact that the shift came through a platform.
That is the practical difference for workers and employers: the same job can carry different legal consequences depending on how it is booked and who controls it. For a worker who crosses the 40-hour mark in a week, the difference can reach overtime pay as well.
- Ohio overtime rules generally require time-and-a-half after 40 hours in a workweek.
- The bill creates a nonemployee lane only under defined circumstances.
Why the status line matters
The fight here is not about the care itself. It is about who is treated as the worker’s employer, and what obligations follow from that label. In a platform-driven system, that can decide more than a pay stub; it can determine how the job is governed.
Available vote records show the bill advanced without recorded no votes.
What readers should keep in mind
The proposal is narrow by design. It does not appear to erase employee protections across the board, and it does not treat every app-booked health care shift the same way. Instead, it gives Ohio a way to separate certain platform-based work from ordinary employment for specific laws, with the details doing the real work of the bill.