My understanding is that if a worker has any characteristic of an employee, they are an employee. Any of several criteria are sufficient and only one of them is necessary.
In the bigger picture, Congress passes laws and delegates authority to a branch of government to establish rules and regulations using a process complying with other statutes that dictate how rules and regulations become binding.
Essentially, in the US at all levels -- Federal, State, and Local -- there are two types of legal requirements. Statutes and rules/regulations. The statute is the what. Rules and regulations are the implementation details...ok, there's actually a third parallel part which is legal precedent established by the courts.
Anyway, Congress delegates authority to executive agencies so that it can focus on other things and not have to micro-mange each tiny detail of everything under the sun.
I am also not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the system is not clear in the way that you are describing it.
As to "Anyway, Congress delegates authority to executive agencies so that it can focus on other things and not have to micro-mange each tiny detail of everything under the sun." - each tiny detail? This is a case of classifying millions of workers. We're not talking about a tiny detail, we're talking about something that is immensely important both to all the people affected by it as well as all the companies that have to operate under these labor laws. This isn't Congress delegating away the details, it's them failing for an extended period of time to address an absolute enormous and critical issue in the labor market.
My understanding is that if a worker has any characteristic of an employee, they are an employee. Any of several criteria are sufficient and only one of them is necessary.
In the bigger picture, Congress passes laws and delegates authority to a branch of government to establish rules and regulations using a process complying with other statutes that dictate how rules and regulations become binding.
Essentially, in the US at all levels -- Federal, State, and Local -- there are two types of legal requirements. Statutes and rules/regulations. The statute is the what. Rules and regulations are the implementation details...ok, there's actually a third parallel part which is legal precedent established by the courts.
Anyway, Congress delegates authority to executive agencies so that it can focus on other things and not have to micro-mange each tiny detail of everything under the sun.