By Robert Ramos
Staff Writer
When we think of independence, we think of freedom. The freedom to do whatever we please. In some jobs, you can sign on as what is called an independent contractor. This means you perform work for a company, but social security and medicare taxes must be paid without the company’s help. You have to pay for it. In the world of professional wrestling, the WWE has their talent signed as independent contractors. No health care is pretty problematic in a sport where the wrestlers get injured regularly. So they are signed but are free to do work that isn’t wrestling to make some extra money. That is what you would believe. Some of WWE’s talent have created accounts such as Cameo where you can pay for a personalized video from the wrestler. Some created Twitch accounts to stream video games to their loyal audiences. WWE claims that they don’t have the right to make a little extra money as it is apparently detrimental to the company. Therefore the talent must accept potential fines, suspensions, and even being released. The talent continues but foregos any earnings and only receives a portion of the money they would have made. Some of them rely on that money to pay for things such as health care and social security. This has caught the attention of one Andrew Yang who called the classification as independent contractors a “ridiculous classification” and believes that the “exploitation of performers seen by millions every day” is simply unacceptable. So if they are independent contractors, why can’t they make a little extra money? It also makes no sense especially since WWE has had one of its most profitable years ever. It makes you question just how independent is independent?