Richard Florida processes John Gapper’s labor musings -
Collective bargaining has a role in this world – to set standard contract terms or percentages for royalties and residuals – but individual negotiation is where the big money lies. Many technicians and writers are freelancers because it suits them: they get greater freedom to work across the industry and earn more.
Where collectivism could bring unadulterated rewards is outside the workplace – by providing health and pension benefits that freelance workers do not get. It is no coincidence that the MTV freelancers were angered by having their health benefits reduced. If you do not have health insurance in the US, you take a huge financial risk.
and asks -
Gapper is onto something here. The struggles that will define the creative age are just emerging. Right now we have a system rigged to benefit superstars and winners. In terms of historical analogies, the current creative class movement bears some resemblance to the early organizing struggles of old American Federation of Labor? But, later we say the rise of mass production unionism with the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations? Is a similar divide emerging between creative and service workers? What institutional solutions are needed to include and reward more and more of the growing ranks of creative workers - and what about the broader issue of the service class? What would a new movement and structure for building a workable creative economy look like?
Structurally, I think it looks like more individual agents collaborating through cooperatives, sole proprietorships and corporations. Miriam Cherry, writing about Decentering the Firm: The Limited Liability Company and Low Wage Immigrant Women Workers, 39 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 787 (2006) at Concurring Opinions said -
In the article, I look at the low-wage jobs held by many immigrant women workers and conclude that part of the reason why so many of these jobs – often in positions such as nannies and housecleaners – are paid so poorly and are so exploitative – is because of the intersection between several types of oppression: gender, ethnicity, race, and immigration status.
When one takes a job in the underground economy, many of the typical benefits that we think of as being associated with work simply don’t apply. Obviously, the situation is worse for undocumented workers who are hesitant to enforce their rights (for fear of being deported), and because they may not even be able to receive any remedies (the Hoffman Plastics precedent).
As a – partial - solution to this problem, I talk about re-organizing these types of work, eliminating the intermediary who normally sets up the work and takes a profit, and transforming the workers into owners who are members of an LLC. This allows for collective benefits – such as health insurance and workers’ compensation – and allows for the LLC to pay taxes, so that if a worker is able to regularize their immigration status, they will not have tax problems.
While creative and service class members are not illegal immigrants, they too could collectively benefit through creative uses of existing corporate structures and more in depth knowledge of the bargaining process.
They have natural allies in the buy local, buy handmade movement (via Fred Wilson); what is urgently needed, however, is better, more accessible access to expert help, advice and capital to execute.
More thoughts? I’ll be around all week to discuss these ideas so feel free to add your feedback via comments!
