1/6 Hey @ShiraOvide,

You wrote: “There are complicated questions that voters have to consider, including whether it’s better to have more jobs with less of a safety net, or fewer but arguably better jobs.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/technology/you-cant-escape-ubers-lobbying.html

2/6 As a newspaper/magazine staff editor for a decade, and now as a freelance writer/editor by choice for 17 years, I’m here to say that we independent contractors are sick of this snobbery.

W2 jobs are not better than independent contractor work. Study after study shows ...

3/6 we ICs earn as much as or more than W2s, we are happier, and we want to stay freelance. Even during the pandemic, 60% of ICs told researchers no amount of money would get us to go back to a W2 job.

The snobbery that leads to biased writing like yours has a name. ...

4/6 It’s called “labor aristocracy.” It dates back more than a century, to when the first big US union bosses believed that union workers should have more benefits than other workers. An aristocracy of labor, with them at the top.

Here in 2020, we independent contractors...

5/6 reject this notion. We are not the “commoners” wishing we were “aristocrats” in the W2/union system as you define it. We actually feel sorry for many W2 workers. Quite a few of us quit those jobs because we value our freedom to succeed on our own terms...

6/6 Please stop writing that W2 jobs are “better.” Tens of millions of us disagree. 70-80% of us say in multiple studies that we want to remain ICs.

It’s why we are fighting back against laws like #AB5 and encouraging every Californian to vote #YesOnProp22

#FightForFreelancers