By Marc V. Avelar
June 28, 2025
My May article, “Winning the Working Class: Fighting for Workers Rights of All Workers in 2026 Elections and Independent Contractors the Key” I shared how independent contractors are the key for both parties to win the “working class” votes in future elections. Additionally, the challenges independent contractors are facing in New Jersey where the outgoing administration of Governor Phil Murphy (D) is trying to implement a rule making it tougher for the state’s estimated 1.7 million 1099 independent contractors to keep their 1099 classification.
Indeed, on June 23, the “2025 Battle of Trenton” took place as independent contractors packed a state hearing on the New Jersey rule change. My friend New Jersey-based national subject matter expert Kim Kavin documented the June 23 hearing from the front lines in her article here. A follow-up article about the risk of the New Jersey independent contractor rule to the nation’s supply chain can be read here.
Other states have taken a different approach to some independent contractors. Last fall, Massachusetts voters approved Ballot Question 3, a voter initiative for app-based Rideshare drivers, most notably drivers for Uber and Lyft, to unionize.
Since the Massachusetts win last fall, two other states announced they would pursue similar legislation in Minnesota and California.
On June 16, Illinois joined the group of states pursuing unionization for rideshare drivers classified as independent contractors, so the fight for independent contractors has come to Illinois under the rideshare drivers unionizing movement.
With this independent contractors unionization movement comes another facet Illinois voters must be educated and that is the concept of “sectoral organizing”. Terms like “sectoral bargaining” and “sector-based bargaining” are variations. All Illinois voters must learn what this really means for the future of work in Illinois and potentially across the country is at risk from the far left’s push to implement labor policy outside of the National Labor Relations Act.
What is “Sectoral Organizing/Bargaining”?
When the Illinois news from June 16 was published in various mainstream media, my friend and co-witness in the independent contracting subject matter hearing in Springfield on April 30 took to social media:
It should be noted the terms “sectoral organizing” or “sectoral bargaining” were not used in the Illinois coverage on June 16. Kavin quickly followed-up her post with the link to the Chicago Tribune article with this post:
While her post refers to her April 2025 article on her FreelanceBusting.com Substack, Kavin first wrote about sectoral bargaining in a July 2024 article. Here is how she defined sectoral bargaining in that article.
“As the lawyers explained it to me, this type of organizing is different from what we’re familiar with in the United States. Here, unions are legally required to organize only a single company at a time. They can’t unionize the whole auto industry at once; they first have to get employees at Ford to unionize, then go to Chevrolet, and so forth.
“In legal lingo, unions have to focus their organizing efforts on a single enterprise.
“With sectoral organizing, that limitation is removed. Unions could gain control over setting standards for entire industries—including ones where independent contractors do business, even without reclassifying us as employees. Union-backed lawmakers could give organizers control over, say, standards for the whole publishing industry. Suddenly, freelance writers would be caught up in their gill net, right alongside unionized and non-unionized employees.
“ ‘That sounds like the way drug cartels get power over entire regions or spheres of an economy,’ I said to one of the attorneys. ‘They try to control everyone from the mules to the cooks to the street dealers.’
“He replied that my comparison was apt. Sectoral organizing is cartel-level control in the hands of union organizers, backed by the power of the state.
“The freelance-busting crowd is now signaling that it intends to push for this type of cartel organizing.
Kavin’s article was published on July 22, 2024, right about the time then President Joe Biden abruptly ended his reelection bid, so much was overshadowing the news cycle at the time. It should also be noted Kavin started her Substack page on June 10, 2024.
In April of 2024, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) leaders stated the following with emphasis added:
“We will build power in our core industries and beyond by growing every local’s member strength and organizing to win breakthrough sectoral victories in multiple states, provinces, and federally. We will open the doors of our union to workers who are raising standards across entire industries and to service and care workers in the American South.”
Is sectoral organizing or bargaining for workers in an entire industry instead of using the enterprise model of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) the right way to go?
Sectoral Organizing/Bargaining “literally unprecedented”:
Because independent contractors fall outside of the NLRA, could states implement union organizing outside of the NLRA enterprise bargaining model?
That’s exactly what is being attempted in Massachusetts with the passage of BQ3. Per a January 10, 2024, op-ed in The Federalist Society by attorney Alexander T. MacDonald:
“The [MA driver initiative] petition…If adopted, it would cover all Massachusetts rideshare drivers with a sector-wide bargaining scheme. That scheme would allow a union to trigger bargaining by getting signatures from as few as 25% of drivers. The union could then bargain on behalf of every driver in the state. Any agreement would go to a state regulator for approval. And if approved, the agreement would apply to the whole industry. The petition’s legal merits are uncertain. It is literally unprecedented.”
Similar views were shared by Massachusetts-based attorney and New Jobs America President Mike Hruby in a mid-January, 2025 post:
This new section of Massachusetts law was passed by voters last November as Ballot Question 3. It has many legal flaws, a few being:
— BQ3 never disclosed the fact that independent contractors are EMPLOYERS in business law.
— By federal and state anti-trust law, employers as sellers of products and services are prohibited from combining to control pricing to their customers.
Chapter 150F consciously ignores this conflict of laws.
— BQ3 sets up a complicated mathematical game that workers are told they can play to win, but in fact the game is steeply rigged to assure unionization.
— The right to vote for or against unionization and about wages and working conditions is specifically withheld from the lower frequency half of all rideshare drivers.
— BQ3 also establishes a realm in rideshare driving that will lead to industry-wide price fixing for labor and other costs. This sectoral bargaining realm will raise prices to consumers, allow lower net wages to be paid to drivers, and exclude all new business entrants wishing to provide rideshare driving platform services.
The attached graphic follows the flow laid out in the new law.
Other Legal Consideration: the Garmon U.S. Supreme Court Case Law
The 1959 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon held that the NLRA preempts state and local labor laws, and granted the National Labor Relations Boardexclusive jurisdiction over labor disputes. Independent contractors are excluded from union organizing under the NLRA and the Garmon decision backs up the NLRA’s exclusion of independent contractors from union organizing.
Because independent contractors fall outside of the NLRA, could states implement union organizing outside of the NLRA enterprise bargaining model?
Whichever state implements its sectoral bargaining law first will be facing multiple court challenges, given the legal precedents, particularly the Garmon decision. The lawyers will be very busy sifting this out legally.
The path forward
What will benefit Illinois rideshare drivers the fastest?
Could the goal of drivers’ representation be implemented through the NLRA in ways that would expedite the benefits to the drivers? Or will the untried sectoral organizing, with years of legal challenges preventing the drivers from benefiting over a period of years, be Illinois’ path?
All stakeholders must answer these questions, and learn what sectoral organizing really is including the merits and risks of adopting this European model in the United States.
Yes, this is a lot of material, and those who’ve not been dealing with labor law, it’s very complex. That said, the future of work, of Americans’ ability to provide for their families and be-their-own-boss is at risk with sectoral organizing/bargaining.
On June 23, I was interviewed for 50 minutes on this topic on The Conservative Cat podcast, hosted by downstate 1099 independent contractor Catrina Barker. As this issue gains traction as the IL General Assembly has a bill(s) to implement the Chicago compromise, stay tuned to the developments. I’ve already testified in Springfield once on independent contractors’ freedoms and I’m ready to do so again.
Illinois must do the right thing, and voter awareness is a very key first step to win the votes of the working class by being a champion for our issues, including the freedom to work independently.
Marc Avelar lives in Dundee Township and served as an elected trustee for the village of Algonquin in the late 1990s. In 2022, Avelar was appointed to the Dundee Township Mental Health Board & has served as president of the Board for the past 2 ½ years. The opinions are his own and no legal opinions are part of this article.
