‘Dangerous’
The dark side of U.S. history is littered with deeply disturbing invective. From racists. From sexists. And increasingly, from freelance-busting unionists.
In 1860, Lawrence Keitt walked onto the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. The congressman from South Carolina, in a prepared speech, said this:
“African slavery is the cornerstone of the industrial, social and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism.”
His argument was that the very concept of Black people being free was an existential danger to the Southern United States. He was known as a Fire-Eater, a radical who materially contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War.
A little more than three decades later, in 1894, U.S. Senator Elihu Root of New York used similar language about needing to protect “the State” when arguing about the idea of women being free to vote. The following passage was part of an address that he gave before the New York Constitutional Convention:
“I am opposed to the granting of suffrage to women, because I believe that it would be a loss to women … and because I believe it would be an injury to the State.”
The dark side of American history is littered with the language of people who emphatically dismissed the nation’s core promise of liberty, people who believed that the idea of freedom should apply only to their preferred human beings, people whose words history has proved to be, quite simply, despicable.
And for generations, those who have sought to control others—whether because of race or gender or another distinction—have painted those perceived others in this specific way. They’ve framed the idea of the others’ freedom and equality as a danger to the State, to the nation.
Which brings us to what Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters union, said about independent contractors this week.
O’Brien, according to a post on the Teamsters handle on X, discussed the importance of “dismantling the corrupt independent contractor model” of doing business. Then—in a full-throated embrace of some of history’s ugliest language—O’Brien described our freedom to be our own bosses as a danger to the nation:
“Employers of all sizes and elected officials at all levels need to recognize how dangerous the independent contractor model is for the future of this country.”
Yes. Really.
What O’Brien said is akin to calling the Founding Fathers and their contemporaries a danger to the country. George Washington was self-employed as a land surveyor. Alexander Hamilton was his own boss, as an attorney. Paul Revere ran his own shop as a silversmith.
The freedom to be in business for ourselves has been legal since the day the United States was founded. Entrepreneurial opportunity has always been a core element of our nation’s fabric and success.
Today, millions of independent contractors earn more than $100,000 per year apiece. We work across hundreds of professions and contribute $1.8 trillion to the U.S. economy. Not even 1 in 10 of us say we would prefer a traditional job—while nearly two-thirds of Americans say they would prefer to be more like us, working as their own bosses. All across the political spectrum, the vast majority of Americans agree that government should allow people to be independent contractors. Democrats and Republicans alike say both political parties could be doing a whole lot more to demonstrate support for this particular freedom.
The United States of America doesn’t need protection from independent contracting. What we need is elected officials to protect independent contractors from freelance-busting extremists like Sean O’Brien.
Because frighteningly, he’s not alone.
Comparing Us to Criminals
Back in November, I published this piece about written comments filed by unionists and groups with strong union ties that are seeking to restrict independent contracting through a proposed rule in my home state of New Jersey. There are, thankfully, precious few written comments that take this side in the policy debate, just a couple dozen amid a staggering 9,500 or so comments that are 99% opposed to the proposed rulemaking.
In more than a few of those anti-independent contractor comments, there are questionable claims. As just a few examples, you’ve seen me write about them here and here and here.
But one of the footnoted sources in these public comments truly gave me pause. It was a citation for a 2024 book called Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers’ Rights by Daniel J. Galvin. That book includes a page with a chart that lists the different types of problems that alt-labor groups have identified, and are attempting to solve, by influencing employment law.
The list of identified problems goes right down a column, one after the next, like this:
discrimination
human trafficking
child labor
workplace violence
independent contractors
That’s right: This 2024 book that’s cited as a source in New Jersey’s public comments, seeking to create a rule that attorneys say would almost entirely eviscerate the ability to be an independent contractor, equates being our own bosses with abusing children and assaulting people. It suggests that self-employment is on par with violent crime.
I hadn’t yet read that book when I testified before the U.S. Senate HELP Committee last summer about the need for our government to protect independent contractors from regulatory language that is being weaponized to attack us, and I hadn’t yet seen the words that Sean O’Brien uttered this week. But I had seen enough from the freelance busters by then to know that my opening statement on Capitol Hill needed to include this line:
Those words, sadly, ring even truer today.
‘Extremism’ is Accurate
I thought for a long time about what title to put on the cover of the report that I just released based on New Jersey’s public comments. Sean O’Brien’s statement this week made clear that I chose the correct phrasing when I went with this:
What we are enduring is the antithesis of everything for which our nation is supposed to stand. Attempts to shut down the self-employment pathway to the American Dream are not mainstream. They are extreme. They fly in the face of who our Founding Fathers were 250 years ago, and who millions of us are today.
I urge you to read my new report, which details with more than 200 footnoted sources how what’s happening right now is not an unintended consequence of policymaking. The intent is to restrict independent contracting of all kinds, whether that’s what we want or not. The intent is to use the power of government against those of us that certain unionists define as others.
Corrupt.
Dangerous.
Call these words what they are in this context: extremism. The kind of extremism that always has been, and always will be, a threat to our most foundational freedoms.