Labor
Ohio bill would classify app-booked health workers as contractors
Senator Susan Manchester’s proposal covers shifts booked through a health care worker platform. It applies only when the worker and platform agree in writing or electronically, and only for specified Ohio laws.
Ohio would create a narrower contractor lane for app-booked health care shifts. Under Senator Susan Manchester’s bill, a worker can be treated as an independent contractor for specified state laws if the agreement is made in writing or electronically.
- The bill would let certain app-booked health workers be treated as contractors.
- A written or electronic agreement is the trigger.
- The change applies only to specified Ohio laws, not all employment rules.
- Vote records show the bill advanced without recorded no votes.
- In Ohio, app-booked health care shifts would get a more explicit contractor lane
In Ohio, app-booked health care shifts would get a more explicit contractor lane. Senator Susan Manchester’s bill says a health care worker is not the employee of a health care worker platform or a health care facility for work booked through the platform, so long as the worker and platform agree in writing or electronically that the worker is an independent contractor for that work.
The change is aimed at people who pick up shifts through apps and other digital platforms, along with the facilities that rely on them when staffing runs thin.
A line that changes the rules of the job
That label matters because employee status can drive overtime and other workplace obligations. The bill places the change in sections tied to overtime-related law, including provisions that turn on whether someone counts as an employee or an independent contractor.
It also says key terms in the affected sections keep the same meanings they have under the Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, the federal wage-and-hour law. In other words, the bill is not building a brand-new labor system. It is carving out a narrower classification rule inside parts of Ohio law that already look to employee status.
What stays inside the guardrails
The bill does not turn every app-based health care job into independent-contracting work. It applies only for specified Ohio laws, not as a blanket rewrite of employment rules across the state code.
Available vote records show the bill advanced without recorded no votes.
The practical effect at the bedside
For workers, the difference could show up in how a shift is treated after it is accepted. For platforms and facilities, it offers a clearer defense if they use written contractor agreements for the shifts they book.
That is why the fight over the label matters: the same work can be staffed the same way on the floor, but governed very differently once the paperwork decides who counts as the employer.