Tough Lessons of the CRA: Part III
If we want lawmakers to have our backs as independent contractors, then we need to be in their faces far more often
New Jersey, where I live, just held its primary elections ahead of everyone voting this fall. Here’s what the Democratic candidate who won in a landslide for U.S. Senate posted on primary day on his Twitter/X feed:
Have you ever seen a photo like that of a politician grinning from ear to ear while surrounded by a sea of independent contractors?
You have about as good of a chance of seeing it happen as you do of spotting the Tapanuli orangutan in the wild.
It matters who candidates believe they’re working to represent. Here’s what that kind of union-member campaign participation—the door knocking, the rallying—translates into after Election Day comes and goes:
All too often these days, union organizers are in the rooms where independent-contractor policies are being made—but independent contractors are not.
That’s how we have ended up with the kinds of freelance-busting regulations that Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., tried to stop via the Congressional Review Act. It’s also a key reason why their CRA effort failed to get enough votes to advance.
On Capitol Hill, where I was recently talking with lawmakers and their aides, it is shocking how many people understand the independent contractor issue only from the perspective of labor unions that want to organize us.
To be clear: Many of these lawmakers and aides have never discussed the issue with independent contractors at all.
As hard as many of us have tried for quite a few years now to make our voices heard, we are failing to break through with our message that what self-employed Americans want—not what union leaders want—should be the main factor in all independent contractor policymaking.
We need to get louder. Much, much louder.
Show Up, Right Now
Here’s the good news: It’s campaign season.
All around the country, candidates are holding town halls and meet-and-greets and trying to win votes ahead of Election Day this fall. That gives independent contractors everywhere an opportunity to show up and ask every politician: “Will you protect our right to remain self-employed? Or do you support freelance busting?”
That’s what has to happen—and right now is a great opportunity to do it.
Our politicians need to hear the term “independent contractor” being brought up every time they ask if constituents have questions or concerns.
Every. Single. Time.
They need to hear it from all of us who wish to remain independent contractors. That means truckers. Translators. Graphic artists. Financial advisers. Nurses. Tutors. Sheep shearers. Writers. They need to hear it from every kind of independent contractor that exists in more than 600 professions identified as being affected so far.
The people who want to represent us need to hear our message until they learn to give us the answer that we want to hear, instead of the message that union organizers want to hear.
Our elected officials need to say that they will protect our right to be independent contractors. They need to say that they will stop the freelance busting once and for all.
And we need to push them to keep saying it—until they understand it and mean it.