Yes, Really
The AFL-CIO, in its comment about New Jersey's independent-contractor rule, says having multiple part-time jobs is the same as being your own boss.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the AFL-CIO in the past half dozen years, it’s that something its current leaders say or write about independent contractors will leave my face looking like this:
Back in 2020, it was New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech penning an op-ed that said legislation in the vein of California’s disastrous Assembly Bill 5 would have a ‘profound positive impact on workers’ lives here in New Jersey.”
In 2021, it was a YouTube town hall the AFL-CIO hosted about the federal Protecting the Right to Organize Act, featuring a member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Freelancers for the PRO Act group (whose sketchy story you can read here).
In 2022, it was AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler promoting the U.S. Labor Department’s announcement about independent-contractor rule-making as “a major step forward.” (I’m a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against that rule, which the Trump administration is now rescinding.)
In 2023, it was Minnesota AFL-CIO legislative director Melissa Hysing taking part in a task force that became known as a “task farce” about independent-contractor policy.
In 2024, it was a letter the AFL-CIO sent to Congress trying to block federal lawmakers who were attempting to protect independent contractors.
Now, I’ll be honest: I thought we already had a winner for 2025 when I read this AFL-CIO missive in New Jersey. It says gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli, who has promised to protect us from the state’s proposed independent-contractor rule, “favors low-road contractors over New Jersey’s union workforce.”
Low-road contractors. I didn’t think the AFL-CIO could write anything that would make my eyes roll worse than that—until I read the two-page public comment the New Jersey AFL-CIO just filed with the state’s Department of Labor & Workforce Development.
Here’s my favorite paragraph:
“Critics often state that the flexibility of hours and work schedule afforded to workers by independent contractor status would be eliminated if these rules are adopted. That simply is not true. Workers can perform the same exact jobs they currently are performing—including app-based delivery and transportation services—when classified as an employee. There is no prohibition of a worker holding multiple part-time jobs with several companies, performing the same work they do as independent contractors, but filing a W-2 as an employee rather than a 1099 as an independent contractor.”
This public comment is signed by New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech and Secretary-Treasurer Laurel Brennan, who apparently cannot tell the difference between somebody holding down six part-time jobs with six bosses in control of her every waking hour, and an app-based worker who logs on whenever she chooses and then decides which tasks she wants to perform.
Or, for that matter, the difference between someone with six minimum-wage part-time jobs and a six-figure freelancer doing projects for six different clients wherever, however and whenever she chooses.
Based on the AFL-CIO’s logic, these are all “the same exact jobs.”
Yeah. I’m making the face again.
And it’s not the first time we’ve heard the freelance-busting brigade make this argument. Far from it.
Indeed, we’ve also encountered this totally ridiculous thinking about independent contractors within our federal government.
‘Detached from Our Reality’
In 2022, the four of us freelance writers who co-founded the grassroots coalition Fight For Freelancers USA sent this open letter to then-U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
We wrote:
“Today, we are asking you to oppose the nomination of David Weil as wage and hour administrator at the U.S. Department of Labor, and to ensure that the ABC Test to determine independent contractor status never makes its way into any federal law, regulations or policies.”
In this letter, we told a story about a conference call we’d been on that had left us, well, astonished about how little the people in charge of independent-contractor policy actually knew about independent contractors.
Our letter continued:
“If confirmed, Mr. Weil would join a U.S. Labor Department already led by individuals whose ideas about self-employment are, quite simply, detached from our reality.
“Those department leaders include Associate Deputy Secretary Julia ‘Nikki’ McKinney. We spoke directly with Ms. McKinney when she was labor policy director for U.S. Senator Patty Murray, after we requested a meeting about the need to remove the ABC Test from the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, of which Senator Murray is the primary sponsor.
“We explained to Ms. McKinney that, based on what happened in California, the best-case scenario for small-business owners like us under the PRO Act’s restrictive ABC Test would be going from being our own bosses with 30 clients a year, to being employees with 30 different part-time bosses.
“To any rational human being, the thought of having to answer to 30 different part-time bosses is laughable, yet Ms. McKinney told us she had no problem with that outcome.”
Yes, I know how you look while you’re reading that.
I also recall Ms. McKinney, in that call, telling us pretty much the same thing the AFL-CIO wrote in its New Jersey public comment, that there is no prohibition on an employer offering any employee total flexibility of hours and work schedule.
If I’m remembering correctly, my response to that statement was something like, “There’s also nothing prohibiting employers from giving every employee in the country a million dollars, a Lamborghini and a pony, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon, either.”
Let’s Get This Straight
Being an independent contractor means being your own boss. It is not the same as having a part-time job where someone else is your boss.
Sure, an independent contractor may choose to work only the equivalent of part-time hours, but it’s still whatever hours we choose, and we can upscale or downscale that schedule anytime we like. No employee has that flexibility.
In fact, according to Pew Research, most of those app-based workers the AFL-CIO referenced in its public comment either spend less than 10 hours performing tasks in a typical week, or don’t even do the tasks most weeks. Industry research shows the same thing. I don’t know about you, but I never had a part-time job where I could choose to stop showing up whenever I pleased.
The New Jersey AFL-CIO also wrote in its public comment:
“The New Jersey State AFL-CIO has no issue with legitimate independent contractors, and we understand the benefit this status brings to certain professionals.”
I see zero evidence of that being true. The app-based workers the AFL-CIO cites in this comment comprise less than 10% of all independent contractors. They’re not even remotely representative of us all.
And contrary to the AFL-CIO’s suggestion that reclassifying us would be no big deal, almost no independent contractors wish to be employees—including app-based workers. The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics reports this desire to remain our own bosses again and again about all independent contractors, most recently less than a year ago:
“As in prior surveys, independent contractors overwhelmingly preferred their work arrangement (80.3 percent), whereas 8.3 percent would prefer a traditional work arrangement.”
The AFL-CIO’s public comment does not represent the wishes, or reality, of the vast majority of New Jersey’s independent contractors, many of whom can be found speaking for ourselves among the 99% opposition to the rule proposal.
In fact, the AFL-CIO’s public comment doesn’t even represent the reality of the rule proposal itself, which does not promise to create what the AFL-CIO suggests independent contractors would get from this rule-making: the ability to do the same work we do now, just as W-2 employees.
In fact, the proposal explicitly states that it will not create any such jobs for us at all. This is the proposal’s Jobs Impact section, in its entirety:
Based on my reading of it, New Jersey’s proposed rule also does not promise any of us a million dollars, a Lamborghini or a pony.
But hey, I’m just a low-road contractor. I couldn’t possibly know about such highfalutin things.
So ridiculous! We must keep fighting to preserve the right to freelance in NJ and across the nation. the AFL-CIO wrote in its New Jersey public comment, that there is no prohibition on an employer offering any employee total flexibility of hours and work schedule. The failure to prohibit is NOT the same as providing the legal flexibility that freelancers deserve.