No Means No
This is not protection. This is not freedom. This level of freelance busting is rooted in zealotry that's wholly detached from reality.
Late last week, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 22.
Getting to this moment was a major battle in the broader freelance-busting war, to be sure—and the unionists’ response shows that this war is far from over.
This particular battle began in 2019, when the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 5—one of the most restrictive laws ever imposed against independent contractors. The goal of AB5 was to work around existing law that protects self-employed people from union organizers. AB5, as one labor law professor put it, “shows that labor unions and activists have a lot of pull.”
AB5, even as Governor Gavin Newsom touted it as a step toward unionizing independent contractors, faced widespread pushback from those very same independent contractors in hundreds of professions. This was not politically based resistance; it was across the board. Even California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office warned that the law would cause businesses to stop working with independent contractors, instead of making them unionizable employees.
After several years, in early 2024, economists showed that the warnings and pushback had been correct: AB5’s primary result was, in fact, the destruction of independent contractors’ incomes and careers.
Proposition 22 was a ballot measure put before California voters at the end of 2020 to try and right just a couple of AB5’s many wrongs. Prop 22 asked California voters to protect one category of workers—app-based rideshare and delivery drivers—from AB5.
Voters sided with the drivers, most of whom wish to remain independent contractors. Californians passed Prop 22 by a nearly 60-40 margin.
Then, the Service Employees International Union sued to overturn the will of the voters and defy the will of the independent contractors. The freelance-busting brigade asked the courts to strike down Prop 22.
Last week’s court ruling rebuked them yet again. It was specific only to the app-based drivers, but in the bigger scheme of things, it was a win for the freedom to choose self-employment. It was a defeat for the unionists who keep using Uber and Lyft as a big-tech bogeyman to try and take that freedom away from us all.
To be clear, the timeline of events is:
Independent contractors tell unionists “stop what you’re doing”
Nonpartisan analysts warn unionists “what you’re doing will hurt people'“
Voters tell unionists “stop what you’re doing”
Economists show unionists “what you’re doing is hurting people”
Courts tell unionists “stop what you’re doing”
I’ll give you one guess about whether the freelance-busting brigade now has any intention of stopping its attacks on us all.
‘We Won’t Stop’
The Service Employees International Union—which is currently spending $200 million to try and flip elections for union-friendly candidates nationwide, and which has close ties with Vice President Kamala Harris—issued a press release after the court ruling dropped last week in California.
The SEIU stated:
“Deep-pocketed corporations may be able to outspend us, but nobody can out-organize SEIU’s 2 million members. We are committed to fiercely backing workers across our economy who have been written out and left behind and helping them knock down big obstacles to winning their union rights.”
Tia Orr, the executive director of SEIU California, also made clear on Twitter/X that the union does not understand the meaning of the phrase “no means no”:
April Verrett, international president of the SEIU, reiterated the union’s plans to ensnare not just every employee in this freelance-busting scheme, but also every independent contractor nationwide—with the federal government’s help:
The SEIU’s press release also included quotes from California lawmakers. They indicated, quite clearly, that Assembly Bill 5 would not be the last attempt at freelance busting that the state’s independent contractors will be forced to endure.
Senate Labor Committee Chair Lola Smallwood-Cuevas stated in that release:
“While this decision is frustrating, it must also be motivating. I’m more determined than ever to ensure that all workers—including our diverse and Black, Indigenous, and people of color-led gig workforce—have the basic protections of workers compensation, paid sick leave, family leave, and disability insurance and the right to form a union.”
In other words, to hell with the will of the people and the judgment of the courts.
The freelance busting will continue.
This is Zealotry
At the height of their power in the United States of America, back in the mid-1950s, unions represented about 35% of employees. That’s the best they’ve ever been able to achieve, in the entire history of the country.
Today, unions have all-time low membership: about 10% of employees. Yes, that’s a smaller percentage of the workforce—but it’s not because employees lack the ability to join. The unions themselves—in a tweet that was written today—say that they are winning workplace votes at a rate that is unrivaled in modern American history:
What frustrates these unionists is the fact that an increasing number of Americans are embracing the choice of self-employment. Independent contractors—who are protected by law from union organizers—are expected to comprise half the workforce by 2027. Study after study shows that this is by choice.
The polling organization Gallup, for years now, has asked Americans whether they are interested in joining a union. The answer, also for years now, has been clear. The majority of Americans have no interest in unionizing.
It’s important to understand this broader context surrounding California’s court ruling last week. What the freelance-busting brigade is trying to achieve doesn’t just defy the will of California’s voters and the courts; it defies America’s history. It defies America’s present. It defies the wishes of most independent contractors all across the country.
The SEIU’s rallying cry—which they are trying to make government policy—quite simply defies any reasonable notion of reality:
Even more disturbing is that they’re couching this desire—to unionize every American—in language that makes their behavior seem benevolent:
Here in reality, every employee already has the freedom to join a union.
What these unionists want is the ability to capture every American who does not wish to join them voluntarily.
Don’t let the language of protection and freedom fool you. When someone refuses to take no for an answer, that’s not protection. It’s an attack on our freedom to choose self-employment. It’s an attempt to change the laws and regulations that protect us from them.
What we are experiencing has a name. This is what zealotry looks like. It’s the behavior of fanatics who are uncompromising in the pursuit of what they want, no matter how detached from reality their beliefs are, and no matter how many people they hurt in the process.
We must be clear in our response—as independent contractors, as voters and as a nation that believes in the freedom to choose how we earn a living.
Freelance busting is wrong.
We have the right to be our own bosses, free from union control or coercion.
No means no.