I am a therapist who works with youth in the New Jersey system of care, providing counseling and crisis intervention. Sometimes, the children and families I work with need specific interventions or treatment modalities that I’m not trained to offer. In those cases, I refer the cases to five superb clinicians who pick up the work as independent contractors.
Why I’m an Independent Contractor: I started part-time freelancing before I even graduated college. But I took the leap into full-time freelancing when we adopted my oldest daughter. It was the best decision we ever made. I’m able to have the flexibility to be there for my daughters, be their class mom and cover sick days and days off. I enjoy the hustle, the opportunity to write about topics I’m passionate about, and getting to learn something new every single day. And through the past decade-plus of hard work, I’ve built up a steady stable of clients that keep me very busy.
Why I’m Worried: The media industry is in upheaval, which has made it difficult to even find full-time work, and my friends are regularly subjected to layoffs. Because I have a variety of clients and avenues of work, it’s rare that I have more than a week or two off — unless I plan a vacation. I don’t want to make less, and lose the flexibility I currently have to be here for my family. While some of my clients are larger and pay me in a traditional W2 arrangement, my 1099 income is what gets us through between larger engagements.
What Lawmakers Need to Understand: Most independent contractors are doing this by choice, and we love what we do. We enjoy the freedom of freelancing and the stability that comes from having multiple clients. We turn down work that doesn’t meet our standards for pay and schedule.
I’ve been a freelance journalist for about 30 years. I have always enjoyed having my independence. Also, my son has autism; my schedule has allowed me to take him to therapy, pick him up from school when he’s had a meltdown, and take him to see doctors and other programs.
I don’t want to lose clients. I am older than 60, and there’s a lot of ageism in my field. No one will hire me for a full-time, in-office position.
What I want lawmakers to know: Please, consider how anti-independent contractor legislation will hurt freelancers, moms, older freelancers and disabled people.
In July 1996, as I was coming home from work on the night shift as an editor at the New Haven Register in Connecticut, a man I’d never met followed me into the vestibule of my apartment building. I didn’t know it at the time, but he’d spent the past 20 years of his life wrestling with the demons of paranoid schizophrenia. On that night, he was off his meds, on probation for hitting a police officer, and hearing voices talking to him about women drowning in pools of blood.
I don’t remember all of what happened next. I know that at some point, he was choking me, because a few days later, I had a string of bruises around my neck like a pearl necklace. And at some point, I was knocked unconscious, because when I came to, I was on the ground. And the kitchen knife he stabbed me with was serrated; that one, I only know because the police told me later.
The diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder came fast, and at first, it was acute and severe. I was fortunate to have good lawyers and a good psychologist, and though I live with the remnants of PTSD today, I’m one of the lucky victims of violent crime who was able to go on and have a life. I did have to leave my dream job as a daily newspaper editor behind — you can’t get your blood pressure down and stop the panic attacks completely if you’re sitting under a police scanner at a metro desk editing obituaries and crime reports — but I found my way to the slower pace of boating magazines, and then to freelance writing and editing primarily for them.
Since 2003, I’ve been able to work for those boating magazines and more as a freelancer from home, where I completely control my environment: all the sights, sounds, smells, people coming and going, pretty much anything that could possibly trigger the PTSD. I rarely have an episode anymore, and I’ve enjoyed major success in my career. I even get to do some freelance newspaper reporting now and again. Today, people can read my byline everywhere from Yachting magazine to The Washington Post. In 2019, I won the Donald Robinson Prize for Investigative Journalism. Not too shabby for somebody who, at one point in her life, couldn’t stop her own hands from shaking.
Some of us, like me, become freelancers by choice. We love our lives. We love our independence. We love the control over our environment. We love the money we can make if we work hard. And we love the fact that, if we have a bad night of dreams about a guy with a knife, we can sleep in a little and make up the time later that day, because we get to set our own hours.
For me, being a freelancer has been a life-changing career choice. I know how to fight for my life, and I won’t let any misguided lawmakers take my career away from me.
I wake up early in the morning to teach English as a second language to children in China. This type of job is perfect for me because I am able to finish work before my own four children wake up. After work, I can have the rest of the day to home-school my children, and to bring them to their various sports and activities. One of my children is autistic, and my being home eliminates the need to have to pay for child care.
What I want lawmakers to know: Independent contractors like the freedoms we have to set our own schedules, and to be our own boss. We do not want to be employees. We are grown adults who have chosen this line of work. If we wanted a traditional job, we would have chosen one.
I’m in sales management consulting. I promote products in the Northeast, primarily professional audio products, for small manufacturers that can’t afford full-time employees.
I incorporated my company in New Jersey in 2002. Full-time self-employment has let me buy a home and raise a family by doing work for multiple companies at once. I have been able to establish a niche occupation that otherwise would not have existed, and manufacturers seek me out to help grow their sales as a result.
In addition, my wife is a freelance business writer.
What lawmakers need to understand: I’m not Uber. I’m a professional independent sales rep who is paid strictly on commissioned sales, a job that supports my family, benefits my clients and enables me to pay my considerable taxes.
I lost my job as a corporate trainer when I was on maternity leave with my newborn twins. I was unable to return to work at a traditional job because of the incredibly high child-care costs for three kids, so I started working as an independent contractor from home. During the past four years, I have worked as a direct sales consultant, social media evaluator, transcriber and online teacher of English as a second language.
My independent contractor work has allowed me to put food on my family’s table. I also have a chronic condition with my pelvis that can make long commutes and sitting in an office all day very painful; working remotely has allowed me to have a flexible schedule that my body can handle.
What lawmakers should know: Jobs are not going to magically appear if you restrict independent contractor choices. Instead, you are going to take away the work that I have established for myself.
I depend on this income to help provide for my family. As an independent contractor, I know that I don’t have traditional benefits, but I choose to remain independent because I can create my own schedule and work as much or as little as I please. No big company is exploiting me.
Target the bad actors, not the individuals like me.
Fight For Freelancers NJ 