Kim Kavin's Blog

Today, I have an op-ed in The Hill about the PRO Act. This piece of legislation is scheduled to be taken up starting tomorrow in the U.S. House of Representatives.

I don’t know how to explain any more clearly why professional freelancers like me are so frustrated and terrified. Please give my piece a read.

I’m excited and humbled to share the news that I won three awards today in the annual writing competition of Boating Writers International.

My story for Passagemaker about how the boat-buying process changed during the pandemic earned first prize in the Business of Boating category.

My story for Soundings about all the chaos on America’s waterways during the pandemic, thanks to so many new boat owners being out there behind the wheel, earned second place in the Issues, News and Analysis category.

And my story for Yachting about boatbuilding trends in 3D printing earned third place in the Issues, News and Analysis category.

For a minute there, it looked like I might sweep the entire Issues, News and Analysis category. But my fellow marine writer and good friend Lenny Rudow took first place in the category with a story about seasickness that he titled “Barf-O-Rama.”

So, at least I got to laugh out loud while losing out on the first-place award.

Congratulations to all the winners in this year’s BWI Writing Contest!

Updated February 15, 2021, changing “finalist” to “winner.”

I’m thrilled to share the news that this story I wrote for The Washington Post has been named the winner in the category of best newspaper article/any topic in the annual writing competition of the Dog Writers Association of America.

There’s a fun postscript to this article, too. The story is about the way the Covid-19 pandemic halted a lot of service-dog training, leaving people with disabilities without dogs to help them live their fullest possible lives. The man I wrote about in the story’s opener (pictured here) was struggling because he’s blind, and he needed a service dog to help him cross a busy road to get to the Tractor Supply store to buy things including dog food—while his wife was pulling double shifts as an emergency-room nurse treating Covid-19 patients.

The good people at Tractor Supply read the article, reached out to me and asked how to contact the man. They sent him a bunch of dog food, so he wouldn’t have to worry about crossing that busy road.

Congratulations to all the other winners in this DWAA category and others.

I’m thrilled to share the news that this story I wrote for The Washington Post has been named a finalist in the category of best newspaper article/any topic in the annual writing competition of the Dog Writers Association of America.

There’s a fun postscript to this article, too. The story is about the way the Covid-19 pandemic halted a lot of service-dog training, leaving people with disabilities without dogs to help them live their fullest possible lives. The man I wrote about in the story’s opener (pictured here) was struggling because he’s blind, and he needed a service dog to help him cross a busy road to get to the Tractor Supply store to buy things including dog food—while his wife was pulling double shifts as an emergency-room nurse treating Covid-19 patients.

The good people at Tractor Supply read the article, reached out to me and asked how to contact the man. They sent him a bunch of dog food, so he wouldn’t have to worry about crossing that busy road.

Congratulations to all the other finalists in this DWAA category and others. Best of luck to us all when the winner is announced in February!

Some big news today from the world of social media: There’s a new authors’ collective on Facebook called Dogs & Books where the authors of dog books talk with fans about all kinds of dog-related topics.

I’m excited to be one of the founding authors for this initiative. It’s the brainchild of Teresa Rhyne, who wrote the bestseller The Dog Lived (and So Will I) and who has a new dog book, Poppy in the Wild, coming out with Pegasus Books. That’s the same publisher as my second dog book, The Dog Merchants. A few other Pegasus authors, along with some authors from other publishing houses, are signing up to join the effort as well.

Our plan is to mix in all kinds of content, from Facebook Live “author talks” to conversations about interesting dog-related articles in the news.

If you’re a fan of dogs and books, please come and join us on Facebook.

[image error]About a week ago, radio-show host Bob Zadek read this article that I wrote in the new issue of Reason. It’s about legislation that threatens the careers of freelance writers and editors like me, as well as millions more Americans in more than 300 professions.

Zadek was kind enough to have me on his show yesterday for a full hour as the only guest, live on the air up and down the U.S. West Coast. We talked about my article and a whole lot more, to try and help listeners understand the threat this type of labor legislation poses. We discussed California’s AB5, New Jersey’s S863 and the federal PRO Act.

Yesterday’s show is now downloadable as a podcast here, or on iTunes or Stitcher.

[image error]I was incredibly disappointed this past weekend in The New York Times. I’m a print subscriber, and I truly value the news reporters and editors there. They do work that is second to none, anywhere in the world, when it comes to digging out and publishing important facts.

But the folks running the editorial/opinion page right now are a whole other story. They seem to lack even the most basic standards of research, most recently evidenced in this editorial that led the Sunday section. It’s about a labor law issue that my fellow freelance journalists and I care deeply about, because it threatens to destroy our careers. The Times Editorial Board blindly supported highly controversial legislation without even seeming to understand that basic fact.

I wrote this rebuttal today for DailyKos, urging readers to understand what this legislation really is. The Times Editorial Board led readers to believe that it’s only about the cost of an Uber ride. The truth is far, far more complicated.

[image error]New Jersey’s largest newspaper published this op-ed that I wrote on Jan. 9—the same day that, after two months of intense pushback from freelancers like myself, NJ Senate President Steve Sweeney said he would stop pushing anti-freelancer legislation through the lame-duck session in Trenton.

The legislation is likely to be back, though, in the next legislative session, putting the careers of thriving freelancers like me squarely in the crosshairs. The AFL-CIO is pushing bills like these nationwide, which is why I took the opportunity to speak directly to that organization’s New Jersey leader in this piece.

This op-ed is strongly worded, I know. It needs to be. A lot of thriving careers, including mine, are going to be destroyed if this type of legislation isn’t stopped.

[image error]I wrote this op-ed published today by The Washington Post, trying to alert everyone who works as an independent contractor, or whose business hires independent contractors, that what’s going on right now in New Jersey is going to affect employment law for all Americans going forward—for many years to come.

Please, give it a read and share widely. The upshot:

“The independent contractor laws now being written in a handful of states are setting precedents for how the language is going to be written across the country. If we screw this up in New Jersey now, then millions of Americans stand to be screwed over later.”

[image error]Today, I had an op-ed published in the Star-Ledger, which is the biggest newspaper in my home state of New Jersey. It explains how legislation that started out in California has now come here, and how it could wipe successful freelance journalists like me out of business altogether.

The crux of the problem is that we need to have a national conversation about the meaning of the term “independent contractor” in the age of the gig economy. Here in New Jersey, lawmakers are trying to solve a problem with improperly classified workers at companies like Uber and Lyft—who should be full-timers, but aren’t—in a way that loops all independent contractors into the chaos.

Independent contractors come in a lot of flavors, including freelance journalists like me, who are not misclassified. We’re independent contractors by choice, we’re successful and we pay our taxes. That’s why I wrote this op-ed, and why I hope that New Jersey’s lawmakers come to understand that they shouldn’t be solving one problem while creating an entirely new one.

And if you think it won’t happen in your state, think again: New York already has a version of this legislation on tap for 2020, and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has said she backs these types of laws. This is a New Jersey problem right now, but it’s a federal problem in the long run—and it matters to millions of people like me who earn their livings as independent contractors.