The Weight of Trust

Top politicians backing Mr. "I'll Cripple You" in the port strike also support freelance busting. Maybe now we can seriously discuss government's need to protect us all.

Something that U.S. Senator JD Vance, R-Ohio, said at Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate has really stuck with me.

The moderators asked him a question about abortion. Here is how Vance responded:

“I think that what I take from that as a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent life in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable, is that my party, we’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they, frankly, just don’t trust us.”

They frankly just don’t trust us.

Now, I’ve made no secret that I’m pro-choice—in the doctor’s office, in the home office, and pretty much everywhere else, too. When I heard Vance say that Republicans have lost Americans’ trust the issue of abortion, I thought: accurate. That’s exactly how I feel about the Republican Party on the abortion issue right now.

And it’s not just me, which is the reality that Vance acknowledged at the debate. On abortion, 63% of Americans say the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% say it should be illegal in all or most cases.

When leaders push policies that fly in the face of what most Americans believe, those leaders lose our trust.

And once trust is gone, it’s really hard to get it back.

This is an important lesson—one I wish lawmakers who support freelance busting would learn when it comes to policymaking that targets independent contractors.

On self-employment, the percentages are almost identical to abortion in terms of what Americans believe: 62% of us would prefer to be our own boss, while 35% would rather be someone else’s employee. And while Pew Research says 64% of women support legal abortion, a whopping 92% of us women prioritize the flexibility of self-employment over the "stability” of a traditional job. The AARP asked women 40 and older if it was the right choice to start their own business. A staggering 98% said yes.

And yet, just as Republicans (along with a handful of Democrats) keep pushing against the will of the majority on abortion, Democrats (along with a handful of Republicans) keep pushing against the will of the majority on self-employment. The parallels on these two policy issues are eerie.

There is no mystery about how this freelance-busting story will end for politicians who refuse to change course. They will ultimately find themselves just as Vance did this week, staring out at a sea of Americans and realizing the exact same thing.

They frankly just don’t trust us.

“I’ll Cripple You”

The vice-presidential debate took place in the context of a strike that started this week by the International Longshoremen’s Association. The strike is estimated to cost the economy $5 billion a day, halting the flow of half the country's ocean shipping.

Leading that strike is a man named Harold J. Daggett, who turned down a 50% raise for the union’s members. He wants 77%.

He also has thoughts about technology. In a video interview from a few weeks ago, Daggett laments the fact that everyday people now have E-ZPass at highway tollbooths, because even though cars can zip through without traffic jams nowadays, union members used to have jobs collecting those tolls. He’s similarly upset about supermarket self-checkout lanes, because union members used to work the registers. The ports, Daggett says, should not be automated either:

Now, we can all agree or not with Daggett’s views on technology, but there’s no arguing that right now, as Americans began panic-buying things like toilet paper, Daggett has the full backing of quite a lot of powerful politicians who have been courting union campaign support.

Former President Trump—who met with Daggett in 2023 and more recently invited the head of the Teamsters union to address the Republican National Convention—diverged from many other Republicans who are calling on the White House to halt the strike. Trump instead said that American workers should be able to negotiate for better wages, “especially since the shipping companies are mostly foreign flag vessels, including the largest consortium one.”

As for the Democrats, Daggett name-checked Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, saying she “has been terrific.” Vice President Kamala Harris issued a statement backing the strike yesterday. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sounds like he’s on the same page. President Biden said he will not stop the strike, responding to a question as he prepared to board Air Force One just before the longshoremen hit the picket line:

Reporter: “Mr. President, will you intervene in the dockworkers strike if they go on strike on Tuesday?”

Biden: “No.”

Reporter: “Why not?”

Biden: “Because there’s collective bargaining, and I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley.”

The Taft-Hartley Act is a 1947 law that limits the power of labor unions. Congress passed it because lawmakers believed that some union conduct needed correction.

Think about that, and about the idea of trust in politicians and union leaders, as you hear what Daggett says in that video about the kind of power he can, and fully intends to, wield against us all:

“These people today don’t know what a strike is. When my men hit the street from Maine to Texas, every single port will lock down. You know what’s gonna happen? I’ll tell you.

“The first week, it’ll be all over the news every night. Boom, boom.

“The second week? Guys who sell cars can’t sell cars ‘cause the cars ain’t comin’ in off the ships. They get laid off.

“The third week? Malls start closing down. They can’t get the goods from China. They can’t sell clothes, they can’t do this. Everything in the United States comes on a ship. They go out of business. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren't coming in. The steel is not coming in. The lumber's not coming in. They lose their jobs.

“Everybody's hating the longshoremen now because now they realize how important our jobs are."

It’s certainly possible that if all of that comes to pass, Americans might think: Gee, longshoremen have really important jobs.

Heck, it’s even possible that the strike may inspire more Americans to join unions, as Sohrab Ahmari, a founder and editor at Compact magazine, wrote in The Free Press. He cites polls that show most Americans approve of unions, and says that following the pandemic and people’s feelings of powerlessness:

“The time is ripe for the working class to capitalize on this goodwill and reset the balance between labor and capital. If you’re shocked by how good the longshoremen have it compared to conditions in your industry, don’t get mad (at them)—organize.”

How good do these longshoremen already have it, as they strike while demanding a 77% raise? As CBS News reported, a 2019-20 annual report from the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor found that about one-third of local longshoremen were already earning $200,000 or more. 

That might lead a lot of Americans to think: They make how much? Automate the ports right now to protect our supply chain and get prices down.

Public opinion might be further influenced by the fact that the U.S. Justice Department has accused Daggett of being an associate of the Genovese crime family (Daggett was acquitted in court). Politico reported that he earned $728,000 last year from the union, plus another $173,000 as president emeritus of a local union. According to the New York Post, he lives in a 7,000-square-foot house with a Bentley parked outside.

For my money, though—which is significantly less than Daggett’s—the most notable thing Americans will learn during this strike is that the destruction of everyone else’s lives and livelihoods is this union leader’s intended goal.

He is explicit in that video, saying that when it comes to his union getting what it wants, the costs everyone else will be forced to pay are acceptable collateral damage:

“In today’s world, I’ll cripple you. I will cripple you, and you have no idea what that means. Nobody does.”

It occurred to me, hearing him say those words, that independent contractors like me actually do know what it means.

This same disregard for our lives and livelihoods is at the heart of all the freelance-busting policies we’ve endured for five years now. This freelance busting is originating with union leaders who want what they want in exchange for political campaign funding: the government to force as many of us as possible out of self-employment, and into unionizable jobs.

Independent contractors have tried to talk to our elected officials and appointees about the many reasons that freelance busting is just plain wrong. We’ve been in the meetings and public hearings, and testified before Congress. Again and again, we keep stating the plain truth that our government is supposed to represent us all.

We’ve been met by unionist after unionist in positions of power, making clear that our livelihoods are entirely expendable in their grand plans to empower unions.

After five years of this, I can tell you that when it comes to the politicians who support the freelance-busting madness, independent contractors like me frankly just don’t trust them.

And if this port strike drags out, I think the odds are quite good that a lot of other Americans are going to end up feeling the same way that we do.

We’re All Learning Fast

Right now, according to Gallup, most Americans do, indeed, support unions. Polls show that as the strike is getting underway, the vast majority of us don’t personally want to join a union, but we’re fine with them existing.

As Daggett said, though, “These people today don’t know what a strike is.”

That’s where Daggett is indisputably correct. A strike of this magnitude hasn’t happened in about 50 years. We’ve been living in an era of labor peace. Most of the Americans who say they support unions have never thought about how a striking dockworker might be able to do what Daggett’s describing. They’ve never seen guys like him on national television doing interviews like this one on CNN:

Reporter: “Are you worried that this strike is going to hurt the everyday American? The farmers that need to reach the export market?”

Daggett: “Listen, now you start to realize who the longshoremen are.”

Indeed.

Quite a lot of Americans are fast becoming well aware of who some of these most militant union leaders are, what they’re doing, and how little they and their favored politicians think about all the rest of us.

It’s the same lesson that independent contractors have been forced to learn about the most authoritarian members of the freelance-busting brigade in recent years.

Maybe—just maybe—this strike will finally create an opportunity to have a national conversation about the need to protect everyone’s right to earn a living. It’s a desperately needed conversation about how we are supposed to have government of, by and for the people, not government of, by and for the unions.

Sean O’Brien, the head of the Teamsters union and a leading voice in the freelance-busting crowd, issued a statement this week about the port strike. A charm-school graduate, he is not, but I share it here verbatim for good reason:

“The U.S. government should stay the f**k out of this fight and allow union workers to withhold their labor for the wages and benefits they have earned. Any workers—on the road, in the ports, in the air—should be able to fight for a better life free of government interference. Corporations for too long have been able to rely on political puppets to help them strip working people of their inherent leverage.”

Independent contractors like me also believe that everyone should be able to achieve a better life, and to earn a living in a way that’s free of government interference.

We agree it’s wrong when big-money special interests—including labor unions—rely on political puppets to try and strip us of our rights.

The fact that more than a few union leaders and politicians have been trying so hard to do precisely those awful things to independent contractors in recent years is why so many of us feel the way we do today.

We frankly just don’t trust them.

Say it louder, Senator Vance, until they realize you were talking about all of them, too.