Well, that Escalated Quickly

Why the freelance-busting brigade is so angry about yesterday's U.S. Senate vote and the future of the National Labor Relations Board.

It’s been a while since the freelance-busting brigade unleashed a tirade of social-media bile in my direction. Back when the Protecting the Right to Organize Act was in play, the hate bombs would drop fairly regularly, up to and including comparing me to a Nazi. Lately, these folks have been more subdued.

That is, until yesterday’s torrent of rage.

Here’s a sample of what came my way:

What sparked their anger?

A vote that took place yesterday in the U.S. Senate—suggesting that we are about to enter a new era of policymaking (please let it be true) that ends the use of government as a cudgel for union organizers against everybody else.

The NLRB Vote

As we all know post-election, Republicans are preparing to take over everything in Washington, D.C.: the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. There’s still some time before that changeover happens in January, though, which is why Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a last-ditch effort to maintain some semblance of future control, tried to get enough votes yesterday to confirm another term for a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board.

If the Democrats could win that vote yesterday, it would give them a majority on the NLRB through 2026, even despite President-elect Trump’s upcoming inauguration.

The nominee was Lauren McFarren. She is currently the NLRB chairwoman. Her re-nomination faced quite a lot of opposition for numerous reasons, including the NLRB’s recent controversial decisions on defining independent contractors.

Schumer’s attempt to confirm McFarren for another term yesterday was an effort by the Democrats to cement a majority for the “unions above all others” strategy that the party has been pursuing to the detriment of independent contractors, franchises and other small-business owners.

The fact that the Democrats ended up losing yesterday’s vote—after Vice President-elect JD Vance flew up to Washington from Mar-a-Lago to have his no vote counted alongside no votes from independent Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—was a sign that the era of union organizers dominating our policymaking at the expense of everyone else may finally be coming to an end.

That is not, however, the way that some prominent labor reporters framed the vote online. One widely shared example was Lauren Kaori Gurley, labor reporter for The Washington Post, who tweeted this:

A few of us corrected her choice of the term “anti-union.” Here’s a reply to her from Matt Haller, head of the International Franchise Association:

And a reply from freelance writer Dawn Papandrea:

And a reply from yours truly:

Hence the online spigot of venom opening wide from the freelance-busting brigade.

They were reacting not only to what we all wrote—which was completely reasonable and true—but also to the fact that they feel powerless after so many years of being given unfair advantages against the 90% of the U.S. workforce that has nothing to do with unions. Those unfair advantages have including policymaking that defies the wishes of 80% of independent contractors who prefer to be self-employed and, by law, outside the reach of union organizers.

Yes, those union organizers have real problems. There’s no denying that reality. It’s the reason why they have been so eager to fund Democrats’ political campaigns and, in turn, have Democrats use state and federal government to change policies in ways that they (wrongly) believed would create more union members. This effort has included California’s Assembly Bill 5, the federal PRO Act, some decisions by the National Labor Relations Board under the Biden-Harris administration and more.

Union organizers are in a desperate situation where 80% of non-union employees either don’t want to join unions, or are at best neutral on the subject:

Now, with the federal government showing signs of swinging back toward treating union organizers just like everybody else—instead of putting their wishes above the wishes of everybody else—unionists are going to have to try to become organizations that more people actually want to join.

That’s a cold, hard look in the mirror for a lot of these folks who thought they could impose their will on others, instead of having to earn people’s trust. It’s the kind of reckoning that can lead to lashing out in all kinds of ways.

I say: Let them rant. It’s not going to change the truth.

We are supposed to have government of, by and for all the people, not government of, by and for the union organizers. What happened yesterday in the U.S. Senate, and then on social media, are good signs that balance and fairness in policymaking may finally be on the horizon.

As far as I’m concerned, they can call us all the names they want, so long as we remain free to earn a living in whatever ways we choose.