Here We Go Again
The Democratic National Committee's new chairman just made clear why the GOP must pass legislation to protect independent contractors.
Ken Martin, the recently elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, issued a framework last week that makes clear the Democratic Party intends to continue pushing for freelance-busting policymaking nationwide.
According to Martin’s five-page memo, the party’s continuing effort—to restrict everyone’s freedom to hang out a shingle and be our own bosses as independent contractors—is once again being rebranded.
The party is shifting from the language of the Harris-Walz campaign, which told entrepreneurs that we all need the “freedom to join a union,” to saying that restricting self-employment is now part of a “fight against Trump’s war on working people.”
None of this should be surprising, based on Martin’s background. The push to reclassify America’s tens of millions of independent contractors as unionizable employees is originating with labor-union leaders who are desperate to turn around their record-low membership numbers. Martin campaigned for the job of DNC chairman by touting this on his website:
“As one of the only candidates for DNC Chair with firsthand experience as a labor organizer and a card-carrying union member, he proudly identifies as a pro-labor progressive.”
In the framework for the future that he released last week, Martin took the Democratic Party’s old language about the need to stop misclassification—a problem that seems to be far less widespread among independent contractors than Democrats have long claimed—and made it a bullet point on a long list of problems that we all apparently need unions to solve as they fight Project 2025:
For the record, what Project 2025 says about independent contractors—what the chairman of the Democratic National Committee stands against—is that Congress should protect everyone’s freedom to choose self-employment and try to improve self-employed Americans’ access to benefits plans.
The part of Project 2025 about independent contractors is on pages 590 and 591:
Also for the record, there is no groundswell of desire among independent contractors to give up our freedom and become more like any employees, let alone unionized employees. The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, released just a few months ago, stated yet again that most of us are perfectly fine with our choices:
“As in prior surveys, independent contractors overwhelmingly preferred their work arrangement (80.3 percent), whereas 8.3 percent would prefer a traditional work arrangement.”
Broadening out the lens to the whole U.S. population, Gallup research continues to show that while most Americans approve of unions in general, most Americans don’t personally wish to join a union, or are at best neutral on the subject.
Most Americans would prefer to be our own bosses, even if gaining that freedom comes with financial risk:
The current wave of freelance busting has long ignored what most Americans want in this policy area. Martin’s statement last week is not a one-time miscalculation by the Democratic Party; it’s a promise for more of the recurring, relentless and remorseless effort to implement union-backed regulatory language that:
California introduced as Assembly Bill 5 in 2018, leading to the destruction of legitimate independent contractors’ incomes and careers.
Quickly progressed to copycat bills that thankfully failed to advance in New Jersey and New York, with public outrage making headlines all across New Jersey, in particular (mine was among the loudest voices of opposition).
Moved to Congress by way of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act despite a warning from a former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board that it would “substantially unravel and change large segments of the US economy and adversely affect millions of service providers who currently view themselves as independent contractors governed by their own entrepreneurial decisions.”
Came within three votes of being the law of the land when Democrats were in control on Capitol Hill and tried to move the PRO Act to President Biden’s desk at the White House.
Morphed into a variation at the Biden-Harris administration by way of U.S. Labor Department rule-making, which dismissed many independent contractors’ objections and replaced a rule the first Trump administration had put in place specifically to stop the California mess from spreading nationwide.
Now, we can add Martin’s plans for the Democratic Party’s future to this list—a list of threats against everyone’s right to be our own bosses that is already seven years long.
The incessant nature of these immoral attacks on our fundamental freedom to earn a living is why Republicans must use their trifecta majority in Washington, D.C., to put meaningful legislation in place now that protects us all.
We Need H.R. 1319
A few Republicans have, unfortunately, joined the majority of Democrats to push freelance busting, but overall, the GOP has stood firmly on the side of protecting our freedom to be our own bosses. We need Republican leadership to translate that attitude into action in the current session of Congress by passing H.R. 1319.
It’s a bill that was just introduced by one of the Republican Party’s most outspoken supporters and defenders of independent contractors, a man named Kevin Kiley who should get some kind of a medal at this point for his efforts to try and protect us all.
Kiley was a California state assemblyman who railed against Assembly Bill 5 and then continued his efforts to stop freelance busting after he was elected to Congress in 2022. In 2023, I was among the witnesses who testified at a hearing Kiley led to try and shine a national light on this policy problem. He also organized a long-form interview after that hearing with Karen Anderson, who founded the grassroots group Freelancers Against AB5, and yours truly to explain the nature of the policy problem:
Kiley has also used his seat in Congress at other hearings to try and expose the malicious nature of freelance busting, including the remorseless stance of “experts” for the Democratic Party who are urging lawmakers to override the will of people who wish to be independent contractors:
This month, continuing his applause-worthy streak, Kiley introduced H.R. 1319, the Modern Worker Empowerment Act, to try and create a clear, reasonable standard for who is an independent contractor and who is an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act and National Labor Relations Act.
In his press release about the Modern Worker Empowerment Act, along with another bill he introduced to protect independent contractor status if our clients give us access to things like group benefits plans, Kiley stated:
“California’s disastrous AB 5 law wreaked havoc on independent workers, stripping them of their ability to work on their own terms and forcing businesses to cut off contractor relationships. Shifting federal regulations threaten to impose similar uncertainty nationwide, putting millions of workers at risk. By codifying both these protections into law, we prevent future administrations from undermining independent workers and provide businesses with the confidence to fully engage with a modern, flexible workforce.”
He’s right. The Republican Party should use its power right now in Washington to get these bills through Congress and onto the desk of President Trump for his signature.
The Modern Worker Empowerment Act, in particular, is based on the regulatory language that Trump put in place through the U.S. Labor Department during his first administration, to try and help independent contractors.
As Jonathan Wolfson, chief legal officer and policy director at The Cicero Institute put it, the bill does something quite simple and important:
“The Modern Worker Empowerment Act provides clarity for workers, businesses, and regulators alike and ensures that small business owners can remain free to work for themselves.”
Hell. To. The. Yes.
I know there’s a lot happening right now in Washington, and Republicans are trying to do a bunch of things in a number of much higher-profile policy areas. Independent-contractor classification deserves to be on the to-do list because:
This policy problem affects tens of millions of Americans who contribute $1.3 trillion to the economy.
The freelance-busting brigade came within a mere three votes of succeeding the last time Democrats were in power in Washington, and we need guardrails established to ensure that never happens again.
The threat to our incomes and careers remains as clear as day based on the new DNC chairman’s framework for the future.
Protecting our freedom to earn a living fits completely within President Trump’s goals of putting the desires and needs of American workers first.
H.R. 1319 is about giving the majority of Americans what we want in terms of how we earn a living. It’s a bill designed to protect a path to the American Dream that millions of us are already happily walking, and that millions more people hope someday to take too. It does nothing to stop employees who wish to join a union; it simply makes clear that we all also have the option of being our own bosses, if that’s what works best for us.
Of course, I’ll be doing my part to help Kiley succeed with this legislation, starting this week. I’m scheduled to be among the speakers at a webinar tomorrow about Kiley’s bills, with quite a few staffers from Capitol Hill already registered to attend.
You can do your part to help by contacting your member of Congress and urging him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 1319 in particular. If you don’t know how to find your representative, click here and type in your ZIP Code.
It’s go time, my friends. Let’s do all we can to gain meaningful protections against the freelance-busting brigade, and to limit the harm they can cause in the future.