NEGOTIATING WRITERS’ RIGHTS: FREELANCE CULTURAL LABOUR AND THE CHALLENGE OF ORGANIZING

Abstract

As media companies grow in profits and economic significance, workers inthese industries are experiencing precarious formsof employment and decliningunion power. This article provides insight into theexperiences of a growingsegment of the media labour force in Canada: freelance writers, who facedeclining rates of pay, intensified struggles overcopyright, and decreasingcontrol over their work. At the same time, freelancers are currentlyexperimenting with various approaches to collectiveorganizing: a professionalassociation, a union, and an agency-union partnership. As part of a larger projecton freelance writers’ working conditions and approaches to organizing, thisarticle provides an overview of three organizational models and raises someearly questions about their implications.