While the Biden Administration harmed independent-minded workers and small businesses in manifold ways from January 2021 through January of this year, Biden bureaucrats’ scheme to snuff out independent contracting opportunities across America was especially vicious.
And a key part of the Biden program to redefine tens of millions of independent workers as “employees” so they could be corralled into a union was his Labor Department’s overturning of independent-contractor standards adopted during the first Trump Administration.
These standards properly focused on who is in control of the work and whether workers can potentially make a profit or suffer a loss stemming from their own initiatives and/or investments.
But a year ago this March, Joe Biden-selected Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, fulfilling powerful union bosses’ wishes, ditched this rule and issued a new one redefining “independent contractor.”
The clear aim of the Su redefinition was to shove as many as possible of the up to 70 million people across the country who perform freelance work into payroll jobs so they could be forced into paying union dues on pain of termination.
National Right to Work Committee Vice President Matthew Leen commented:
“The fact is, the option to be an independent contractor is greatly valued by vast numbers of Americans. That’s why freelancers across the country decried the Su rule.
“Indeed, the strong backlash against the Biden Labor Department by freelancers, including many who had habitually voted Democrat prior to 2024, was undoubtedly a factor in handpicked Biden successor and Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat by Republican Donald Trump.
“Based on Mr. Trump’s track record during his first term as President, freelancers had ample reason to hope his appointees would quickly terminate Biden bureaucrats’ war on their independence.
“Unfortunately, it now seems help may not be on the way any time soon.”
Since securing a solid 312-226 Electoral College victory over Ms. Harris last November, Mr. Trump has sent several signals, including his early terminations of two pro-forced unionism Biden National Labor Relations Board appointees, that he would continue to support Right to Work during his second term.
But his selection of ex-GOP Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer as labor secretary sent the opposite signal.
During her single term in the U.S. House, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was one of just three Republicans to cosponsor the so-called “PRO Act,” a radical Big Labor scheme that would have effectively ended all state Right to Work laws and also decimated independent contracting in all 50 states.
Mr. Leen observed:
“Recognizing that the PRO Act is overwhelmingly unpopular, especially with the rank-and-file Republicans who returned Donald Trump to the White House last year, Lori Chavez-DeRemer seemed to back away from her support for this scheme before the March 10 Senate floor vote on her nomination.
“But the fact that she continues post-confirmation to solicit advice from Teamster czar Sean O’Brien, who reportedly prodded Mr. Trump to nominate her, on how to run the Labor Department suggests she hasn’t really changed.
“Fortunately, Committee members and other freedom-loving Americans who want to protect independent contractors from regulatory overreach don’t have to count on Ms. Chavez-DeRemer to do the right thing.
“This spring, the Committee’s legislative staff will be working with allies on Capitol Hill to build support for H.R.1319, the Modern Worker Empowerment Act.
“By clarifying federal law, H.R.1319 would lift the specter of mandatory reclassification as a payroll employee for tens of millions of Americans who are now employed as independent contractors. And it would deter Big Labor bureaucrats from attacking the right to self-employment in the future.
“As labor economists such as George Mason University’s Liya Palagashvili have shown, drawing on the bitter experience of Big Labor California, policies that attack independent contractors end up reducing overall payroll employment, as well as self-employment.
“Once the dust settles, there are no winners, except perhaps for greedy union bosses like Sean O’Brien, who relentlessly opposes truckers’ freedom to own their own rigs and work for themselves.
“Mr. O’Brien clearly doesn’t mind if overall trucking employment shrinks as long as the number of truckers under Teamster control rises!”
This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.
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“Donald Trump won his remarkable bid to return to the White House last year by appealing to the sense of fairness and economic aspirations of millions of Americans, not by pandering to power-hungry and cynical union bosses.”
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