''You're Hurting Us"

Rideshare Rodeo host Steve Johnson and I talked for about an hour on this episode of his show that dropped a few days ago.

We discussed lessons learned from the recent port strike, the deeply concerning parallels between the freelance-busting movement and the years-long effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, and the primary reason that freelance busting continues to be such an intractable problem.

In addition, we chatted about my motivations in creating FreelanceBusting.com as I’m working on a book about all the continuing attacks against independent contractors.

Here’s a snippet from our conversation, with Steve speaking first:

If you could have 15 minutes to talk to any one person, who would it be and why? I'm looking for who you think would be the person that's worthy of that time on the independent contractor issue…

I think my answer would be Barack Obama, and here's why.

I think he's calling the shots for the Democratic Party. … And I know that the current wave of freelance busting, he's one of the people who kicked it off almost 20 years ago. … He's not a stupid man. And I don't think he's a bad man. I think someone has to get it through his head and have it filter down to the party that they're hurting people.

You're hurting us. You're not helping us. You're actually harming us.

And I would hope that if I had 15 whole minutes, I could articulate that message in a way that would get through, and that maybe we could get this craziness to stop.

Because I do not see this craziness stopping. I see it only getting worse and worse and worse.