To the Editor:
Re “The ‘Gig’ Label Is Being Used to Exploit Employees,” by Terri Gerstein (Opinion visitor essay, Jan. 29):
We’re the freelance writers and editors Ms. Gerstein talked about who’re suing the Department of Labor over the unbiased contractor rule that may, as she stated, “make it more durable for employers to deal with staff as unbiased contractors slightly than workers.” So allow us to clarify.
The Division of Labor acknowledges in its 339-page rule printed Jan. 10 that many of the public feedback made by unbiased contractors expressed opposition to the rule, “criticizing the Division’s proposed financial actuality take a look at as ambiguous and biased towards unbiased contracting.”
There are actually more than 70 million unbiased contractors, comprising a good portion of the U.S. work power, and study after study exhibits that 70 p.c to 85 p.c of us want to stay self-employed. The unbiased contractor rule is simply the most recent within the Biden administration’s ongoing freelance-busting assault on our rights to be in enterprise for ourselves.
Just like the overwhelming majority of unbiased contractors in America, we select self-employment. This rule, slated to take impact on March 11, will prohibit our proper to have interaction in enterprise contracts with our shoppers on our personal phrases. We hope the district courtroom will invalidate the rule and shield our careers.
Jen Singer
Kim Kavin
Debbie Abrams Kaplan
Karon Warren
The writers are the co-founders of Struggle for Freelancers USA.
To the Editor:
Terri Gerstein conflates the gig economic system mannequin with the unbiased contractor mannequin and blames it for the ills and exploitation of unbiased contracting and gig work.
Ms. Gerstein makes use of the case of dishwashers exploited by a brief company. For such instances, federal and native statutes already on the books may deal with this minority of misclassification instances.
However with a view to justify taking away the autonomy, rights and incomes potential of tens of hundreds of thousands of unbiased contractors, as the most recent Division of Labor rule seeks to do, Ms. Gerstein ignores the skilled class of “solopreneurs”: journalists, attorneys, E.R. docs, nurse practitioners and musicians, in addition to the small-business homeowners who depend on such a expert professionalism to take care of and additional their companies.
Ms. Gerstein barely mentions this class, which makes up the vast majority of unbiased professionals. As a substitute, she champions modifications in legal guidelines and laws that finally would do nothing to assist the low-wage staff, whereas doing nice harm to true unbiased contractors.
Jennifer Oliver O’Connell
Muscle Shoals, Ala.
The author, a small-business proprietor and unbiased contractor, is a visiting fellow with the Heart for Financial Alternative at Impartial Ladies’s Discussion board.
Nikki Haley and a 2024 Calculation
To the Editor:
In my sixth decade of voting, I discover myself with a unique perspective. Age and voting expertise have made me a bit much less idealistic, just a bit extra practical and, fairly frankly, much more frightened.
The 12 months 2016 modified issues for me. I wasn’t overly involved when Donald Trump first rode down the escalator. I didn’t imagine he would ever win the nomination. And as he gained Republican delegates, I figured that wasn’t a foul factor. He can be the simplest candidate to defeat.
Now solely Nikki Haley stands between Mr. Trump and the Republican nomination. Do I once more fall into the potential entice of believing that Mr. Trump is unelectable — and the simplest candidate to defeat?
President Biden has had unimaginable accomplishments, at dwelling and overseas. His insurance policies are by far one of the best of any candidate, and I assist him enthusiastically.
However given 2016, ought to I hope Republicans see the sunshine and nominate Ms. Haley, who is way from good however, from appearances a minimum of, far much less harmful than Mr. Trump?
It’s doable I’ll not like the results of a Biden-Haley matchup, however a minimum of the survival of our democracy, and maybe even world order, wouldn’t be on the poll.
Stephen Gladstone
Shaker Heights, Ohio
Fears of Extinction: ‘The Actual Deal’
To the Editor:
Re “Extinction Panic Is Again, Proper on Schedule,” by Tyler Austin Harper (Opinion visitor essay, Jan. 28):
Mr. Harper desires us to really feel reassured that precise life-changing threats to human well-being are nothing greater than predictable bouts of “extinction panic” that quickly upend world complacency. You realize, take some deep breaths and we’ll be advantageous.
I can’t predict how and when world warming will really overtake our skill to mitigate its penalties, or if A.I.-powered robots will ever supersede human dominance. However I do fear about two particular disasters that might rock our world imminently and deserve greater than a sort of “what me fear?” tutorial dismissal as simply one other cycle of extinction panic.
First, lower than a 12 months in the past, the top of the World Well being Group, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that we could soon be facing a pandemic far deadlier than Covid-19. Heightened surveillance, prevention and therapy analysis for brand new pathogens have to be stepped up now.
Second, Mr. Harper appears to wave off the specter of nuclear battle as simply Chilly Warfare brinkmanship redux. Vladimir Putin’s finger is on the set off of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, and North Korea’s unstable Kim Jong-un is more and more obsessive about rising his personal stockpile.
Add to that, the opposite seven nuclear-armed nations are all the time on excessive alert. And we must always fear that Russia appears to be withdrawing from one arms management settlement after one other.
So, no, Mr. Harper, that is way over simply one other outbreak of “extinction panic.” It’s the actual deal.
Irwin Redlener
New York
The author, a pediatrician, is founding director of the Nationwide Heart for Catastrophe Preparedness at Columbia College.
Don’t Reduce Sociology
To the Editor:
Re “Florida Cuts Sociology as a Core Course” (information article, Jan. 28):
When Florida’s state college system dropped “Rules of Sociology” from its checklist of accepted undergraduate core choices, the purpose was not really defending harmless faculty college students from “woke ideology,” because the state training commissioner, Manny Diaz Jr., claimed.
In any case, Florida college students had a number of choices for assembly the social science requirement. No one pressured them to take sociology; they might have simply taken one thing else. They selected it, in sizable numbers.
Sociology typically focuses consideration on problems with inequality, race and gender — matters that Florida’s authorities would apparently choose go unmentioned. Many faculty college students, nonetheless, welcome the possibility to debate and find out about such points of significant public and sometimes private relevance.
The impact of dropping this core credit score will virtually actually decrease sociology enrollments, and thus majors, maybe priming departments for elimination. Programs might then vanish, however the points they deal with will stay, no matter Gov. Ron DeSantis would really like.
Daniel F. Chambliss
Clinton, N.Y.
The author is emeritus professor of sociology at Hamilton Faculty and the co-author of “How Faculty Works.”
The Agony of the Bulls
To the Editor:
Re “After 500 Years, Mexican Bullfighting Faces a Mortal Problem” (entrance web page, Feb. 4):
What sort of collective disconnect does it take for 42,000 folks to cheer and have fun as bulls wail in agony as swords are plunged into their spines and so they die in a pool of blood?
Philip Tripp
Largo, Fla.
