July is national freelance month
FREELANCES are faring as badly as staff in the recession and the union has declared July as National Freelance Month to raise awareness of their problems. Every NUJ branch has been asked to meet to discuss freelance problems and to take up the issue of freelance rights.
One reason it is so attractive to employers to get rid of staff journalists is because freelances are so cheap and easy to hire and fire, the union says. Giving freelances employment rights would make it harder for employers to sack staffers.
The NUJ says freelances should have employment rights such as notice of dismissal, redundancy payment, sick pay, maternity/paternity allowance and representation by a union.
NUJ National Freelance Organiser John Toner told the Professional Contractors Group conference in London in June that many people are effectively working full-time for companies without any of the protection granted to employees. He gave examples of journalists whose income had been wiped out overnight.
One reporter who had worked for 18 months for a newspaper, doing at least five shifts a week, was approached one night and told: “We won’t be needing you any more.” His entire income was cut off at a stroke.
One columnist received 90 per cent of her income from a weekly column in a national newspaper. After 12 years she had an email to say she would be paid for two columns she had already filed but there would be no more.
John Toner said: “We would like to see statutory rights for freelances on a pro rata basis. This already works for holiday pay, and could apply to other rights.”
The union is also campaigning for new laws to make it unlawful to force freelances — or anyone — to surrender their copyright. “For the NUJ, this is a matter of enormous importance,” said John Toner.
To tackle these problems there should be a statutory right to union bargaining for freelance workers. “When New Labour introduced fairness at work legislation, they created a statutory right to trade union recognition but it does not apply to freelances. We need a law that will give the right of union recognition to all workers and does not exclude freelances.”
Union branches have been asked to raise these issues with local, national and European unions and politicians.