Webinar on the Charter of Freelance Rights 5th February 2013

Translated into 12 languages by now, the Charter of Freelance Rights was drafted by the EFJ FreelanceExpert Group in 2003 and finally adopted in 2005 to support freelance journalists. The original idea was to draft such a Charter that reflects fundamental rights of freelance journalists in the style of the UN charter. Nevertheless, and this was agreed upon by all of the over one dozen participants of the webinar, it remains as valid today as it was 10 years ago.

Having a look at each of the Charter's main points, all issues were discussed and illustrated with various examples form different European countries: 1. Every freelance has the right to organize in a union and by collective work seek to improve the situation for freelances and other journalists. Freelances and their unions should have the right to offer services to foster the solidarity among freelances and between freelances and staff, such as recommendations of fees and collective bargaining. The International Labour Organisation's Convention concerning Freedom of Association andProtection of the Right Organise to is a formal ILO convention that should be implemented by all European countries who have ratified the convention.                 2. Every freelance should have the same professional rights as an employee, the same right to be treated as a fair partner when negotiating. The Austrian trade union for all workers in print, journalism and paper-related industries (GPA-DJP) has bundled their campaigns to improve freelances' professional rights under the heading "work@flex" across all fields.                 3. Every freelance has a right to a written contract. Every freelance has the right to be treated as a fair partner when negotiating. The right to a written contract seems a basic right, but the discussion showed how difficult this is to achieve given the often very unequal balance of power between the journalist and his/her employer (client). Especially in Central and Eastern Europe it seems impossible to get a written contract before publication as an example from Poland showed: "In some cases, I have had to sign a contract after publication of my work and of course emails are some kind of proof but in case of problems, it is always difficult." Fostering the aim of point three, German unions, for example, offer negotiations trainings (also via webinars) for freelances to be able to stand their ground in contract talks. Also, the European Federation of Journalists itself has over a long time collected contractsshowcasing unfair terms and conditions and to raise awareness for both newspapers and magazines. It continuously calls upon freelances to send in further contracts and enrich their database. Since the writing of the Charter the unfair negotiation relationship between freelance and his/her client has become worse.                4. Every freelance has the right to hers/his author's rights. All freelances must have unwaivable moral rights. Freelances must have the right to collective bargaining regarding their authors' rights. Tackling the issue of authors' rights, former chair of the Freelance Expert Group (FREG), Heikki Jokinen and now member of the EFJ Authors' Rights Expert Group presented thechallenges to protect them and gave an outlook as to what actions could be taken. These include flat fees for all economic rights of an authors' text, unlimited rights to modify the content, free right to re-sell work without compensation of the author and consequently the transferal of all rights from the freelance to the buyer. He assesses that "we are finally nearing legislation" drawing from examples in Germany and the Netherlands. However, many a counter-examples were given. Furthermore, the recent deal brokeredbetween French publishing houses and Googlewas discussed. The French journalist unions SNJ and SNJ-CGT had criticised that the €60m deal agreed upon would once again cross over authors. 5. Every freelance has the right to choose the best suitable form for hers/his way of freelancing. A fake or forced freelance who is economically dependent should be treated as an employee and will receive all statutory rights and benefits. It was criticised that authors rarely have a real right to choose his or her working conditions which all too often ends up in forced dependencies without viable employee contracts. Thus, union participants agreed that it must be a key element of freelance support to promote collective bargaining. Accordingly, in Austria GPA-DJP is trying to stop the system of fake journalists and try to get them employed. The Austrian Broadcasting station, ORF, is paying a third to its freelances of what staff journalists receive. There is a need to organise around this issue and a campaign is being launched that shows under what precarious workingconditions freelances have to live. There has been a successful solidarity case at the Austrian press agency APA, where false or fake freelances who did the same job, earned much less. Thanks to a great solidarity between staff and freelances, false freelances in the end got a staff contract. Helpful had been that the health insurances were not happy with the low contributions paid by freelances who did the same job as their employed colleagues. But the main reason for this successful solidarity action was the support of work councils for freelances. They had included a freelance into the negotiating team. In Belgium, the issue of fake freelances was put to the court, but unfortunately with a negative outcome. In Finland the issue of fake or economically dependent freelances does not exist. 6. Every freelance should have the right to equal protection by social security institutions on equal terms with employees' such asa) sick payb) retirementpensionc) unemploymentallowanced)maternity/paternity allowance equivalent to a comparable employeeThis can be organizeddifferently according to national circumstances. On the issue of sick pay, many various national approaches were presented: In Belgium freelances are not entitled to sick leave during the first 30 days of leave. It is only from the 31st day onwards that they are being rewarded sick pay. Freelances who want an income for the uncovered days have to take out a private insurance. In comparison, in Denmark freelances in principle have the right to sick pay but over the past years it has become more and more difficult to get it. The system requires various steps of procedure depending on the status of the freelance, that is if he is considered a forced freelance, a freelance considered an employee or an independent contractor with or without a VAT number. Freelances who are considered as employees then face the most challenges as they have to prove that they have been working continuously with one client for the past 26 weeks. Independent contractors are entitled to sick pay after 14 days if they have a regular income. A positive outlook was given through the illustration of an example from Sweden where rest periods recently were changed for freelances to choose between one, three and 30 days with higher costs for the shorter period. This legislation change was due to lobbying and overthrew the previous rule leaving no choice to freelances. Similarly, examples were exchanged on the question of maternity leave: in Denmark, freelances pay €1.50 per month into a common fund out of which they will then be able to receive remuneration during maternity leave. In detail, they get €117 per week for 28 weeks and in 2012 eleven mothers and eight fathers received such support. In Austria female freelances are not entitled to maternity leave at all and currently campaign for change. Regarding the question of unemployment cover, comparisons showed that in Finland freelances are required to set up their own pension schemes and, similarly, Belgian freelances receive none. Danish freelances can get unemployment allowances but again the procedures are very bureaucratic and difficult. Independent contractors may even only receive support if they stop working freelance and sell all their equipment. 7. Every freelance has the right to equal treatment and to receive decent fees and thus not undermine the positions of staff through providing cheap work. Voices raised that the concept of equal treatment though often mentioned in reports by the European Union, is in reality at local level still difficult to implement. Nevertheless, there are union campaigns that show when solidarity between staff and freelances exist, equal treatment can be achieved. The challenges are not easy to overcome and unions in the future will be judged increasingly by its freelance members for bridging the gap.