All regulations (worker protection and otherwise) exist because the required changes are things that wouldn't have happened on their own due to good will or market forces. They're always an above and beyond thing which costs someone money, potentially reducing the number of jobs available, increasing the end-user cost, or triggering automation efforts.

So it's a balance. There are probably also people out there who would happily drive a fork truck with no training or handle chemicals with no PPE, and resent that the government places limits on those jobs. But the reason we do it is because sane and safe work is in the end a commons— without some floor in terms of what's acceptable, it would be (and has been historically) a straight up race to the bottom. Banning certain types of contract work is on the same scale as limiting the number of hours a person is supposed to work in a given day or week.

Is that floor of acceptability in exactly the right spot at present? Maybe, maybe not. But there are good reasons to have your elected body and regulatory agencies "looking out for you."