Kim Kavin Profile picture
Apr 11 4 tweets 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
1/4 Dear @bcmerchant,

You wrote:

"If you’ve ever worked for an on-demand app platform, or for Amazon, or even as an independent contractor at all in the last few years, there’s a good chance that you’ve been discriminated against — by an algorithm."

latimes.com/business/techn…
2/4 What a wildly inaccurate lede.

App-based workers, or what researchers using IRS data call OPEs, make up less than 10% of all the independent contractors in the country.

In other words, the vast majority of ICs have *nothing to do* with pay rates set by algorithms.
3/4 In fact, study after study (after study after study) shows that most of us are happy with our choice to be independent contractors.

We're not being discriminated against.

fightforfreelancersusa.com/data-and-studi…
4/4 Please, stop amplifying the voices of failed researchers like Veena Dubal. With her promises about California's #AB5 having proved wildly false, she's just trolling for writers to spread her new #FreelanceBusting lingo.

Write facts. Not propaganda.

#FightForFreelancers

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More from @thekimkavin

Apr 13
1/15 The people who want to wipe out independent contractors are changing their messaging.

Pay attention to what’s happening right now in the press. Our opponents are trying to shift the narrative—with impeccable timing, ahead of upcoming congressional hearings on our issue.
2/15 Two days ago, this story ran in the Los Angeles Times. In its first paragraph, the writer suggests (falsely) that virtually all independent contractors are being victimized by algorithms that are being used to determine things like pay rates.

latimes.com/business/techn…
3/15 The story is based on “research” by Veena Dubal—a name well known to us. She’s one of the “researchers” whose work underpinned the mess in California that led to the #FreelanceBusting ABC Test law known as #AB5.

uchastings.edu/2018/05/14/uc-…
Read 15 tweets
Feb 26, 2021
1/4 Huh.

My cell rang about an hour ago. It was a recorded message from my congressman, @RepMalinowski, asking if I wanted to be on a live forum right now and ask him a question.

You bet I did.

I told the screener that my question was about @RepMalinowski co-sponsoring ...
2/4 ... the #PROAct, even though for more than a year, I've explained to him the problem with the ABC Test in it, and how just as happened to independent contractors in California when it was tried there, this ABC Test will outlaw careers like mine.

The call screener said ...
3/4 ... he was an IC too, and hadn't heard about the #PROAct, but was going to make sure to look into it now.

I was then put on hold for the full hour. The congressman never took my question.

Although, I did hear him yell "No!" twice when he appeared to believe he was muted...
Read 4 tweets
Feb 25, 2021
1/10 So. There was quite the little dustup yesterday in the comments on this tweet from @LeaderHoyer about @TheDemocrats' intention to start trying to pass the #PROAct on March 8.

Let's discuss what these comments taught us.

2/10 Proponents of the effort to outlaw most IC work have one main talking point. It is the same exact talking point we have heard in calls with the staffers who work for the bill's sponsors. These people are all reading from the same script in trying to defend the #PROAct.
3/10 This talking point is some version of, "The ABC Test in the #PROAct is only for the purpose of union organizing. It doesn't affect wages, hours or terms of employment."

Here's why they're using that language, and why their argument is disingenuous.
Read 10 tweets
Feb 23, 2021
1/4 There is a disconnect in the @nytimes with reporting on PPP loans and reporting on the #PROAct.

This story on PPP states, "The adjustments are intended to increase aid to the very smallest businesses, many of which are run by women, Black people ...

nytimes.com/2021/02/22/bus…
2/4 ... and members of other minority groups." It also quotes @POTUS: “Getting our economy back means bringing our small businesses back." The changes “will bring much-needed, long overdue help to small businesses who really need help" ...
3/4 Whether @nytimes and other reporters realize it or not, many of these same small-business owners are the ones whose work would be outlawed under the ABC Test in the #PROAct, which @POTUS champions.

How, if we are small businesses worth saving now under PPP, are we also ...
Read 4 tweets
Aug 18, 2020
1/14 @TheDemocrats I am begging you to read this thread.

In 2019, when those of us who choose to earn a living as independent contractors realized your plan was to roll out ABC Test labor legislation nationwide, we thought you'd made an oversight. You started in California...
2/14 ... and then tried in New Jersey and New York with the same bills, which impose the 1930s ABC Test for labor law on our economy here in the year 2020.

Your message was that the law had to change because gig companies like Uber were out of control, misclassifying workers...
3/14 ... as independent contractors when they should have been employees with benefits. People like me--who make up the 70-80% of people who consistently say we prefer IC work--figured we were accidentally caught in the crosshairs of this policy, and that you'd exempt us ...
Read 14 tweets

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