The Crowd Wants More
Yet another public session about independent-contractor policy is overwhelmingly on the side of freedom to be self-employed.
Last weekend, I joined several thousand people who laughed until our abdomens ached while watching comedian Jerry Seinfeld work the big stage at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.
The 71-year-old Seinfeld has still got it, turning out belly-busters about things as commonplace as riding a Jet Ski and making a cup of tea. He’s a master of his craft who received a well-deserved standing ovation at the end of his set. There wasn’t a single fan still in a chair. Everyone was on their feet, cheering.
It’s odd, I know, to think about freelance busting in the context of a moment like that. And yet, I can’t help but realize how similar that moment felt to a recent video call I was on—a call with hundreds of participants that the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy organized to get feedback about the independent-contractor rule that the U.S. Department of Labor has proposed.
There might as well have been cheering at the end of that video call, too. It was yet another overwhelming display of support for a government effort to protect the business model of independent contracting.
Among hundreds of people who participated in that video call, only a few seemed less than enthusiastic about the direction the federal rule proposal is taking. And those few naysayers weren’t particularly memorable. They didn’t make compelling arguments. Their words were a whole lot of what Seinfeld fans know as the yada, yada, yada.
By contrast, supporters of the proposed rule were specific about what they liked in the federal regulatory language, and about what else they’d like to see to strengthen support for independent contractors even more.
It is simply undeniable at this point that when lawmakers or regulators try to restrict independent contractors, they face massive public pushback, but when they try to protect us, the crowd cheers—and wants more.
The Right Direction
I used my speaking time during the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy video call to draw attention to what’s happening right now in my home state of New Jersey. We could not be putting on a clearer demonstration here in the Garden State of just how disgusted the public has become with attempts to restrict our freedom to be our own bosses.
We have a proposed state-level rule for independent contractors here in New Jersey that comes from the opposite philosophy of what the federal Labor Department is trying to do. New Jersey’s Department of Labor & Workforce Development proposed a rule that attorneys say poses an existential threat to self-employment and would almost entirely eviscerate the ability to be an independent contractor.
That proposed New Jersey rule did not receive anything even remotely like the warm welcome that the federal proposal is enjoying. Instead, New Jersey’s proposal saw 3-to-1 opposition in testimony at the standing-room-only public hearing, followed by about 9,500 written comments being filed—with a staggering 99% of them opposed.
The contrast in these responses is as bright-line different as it gets. Regulatory language that restricts independent contracting is wildly unpopular. Regulatory language that protects and preserves this way of earning a living is what the public wants. (Need yet more convincing? See California’s Proposition 22 vote.)
What’s happening in New Jersey right now should give the U.S. Labor Department (and lawmakers everywhere) confidence that the direction we are seeing in federal rulemaking is what the public wants, what the business community wants, and what independent contractors want. Anyone who has spent recent years participating in these meetings and hearings knows this isn’t even a close call.
Policymakers who want to hear more directly from the public about this policy issue can take a look at my recent “Extremism vs. Entrepreneurism” report. It amplifies the voices of all kinds of independent contractors and businesses who spoke out in New Jersey, and at the same time uses my state’s public comments to document just how ridiculous the arguments for trying to restrict independent contracting have become.
That report came out in February, and there’s already new material that I could add to it. Just a couple weeks ago, we saw yet more indefensible claims from the New Jersey AFL-CIO, which is brazenly still encouraging lawmakers here in my state to support regulatory language that threatens the incomes and careers of an estimated 1.7 million independent contractors.
We need laws and regulations that protect us from them. For that reason, I’m glad to see the U.S. Department of Labor moving in its current direction, and I hope that states like mine will correct course and begin to do the right thing soon, too. Targeting actual cases of employee misclassification is necessary. Trying to wipe out a way of earning a living that has existed since the day our nation was founded is not even remotely OK.
Our laws and regulations should be based on the principle that everyone is free to earn a living in whatever way works best for us.
Any and all arguments to the contrary are just more of the yada, yada, yada.