Media Workers Guild Maps New Freelance Direction for Changing Workforce

The California Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521, has launched an organizing campaign to boost working conditions for freelance journalists, including the region’s first juried press credential for independent news gatherers.

Supported by a grant from the Berger Marks Foundation in Washington, D.C., the San Francisco-based Guild local has a full-time organizer working on the project, along with other staff and volunteers. The broad-reaching campaign focuses on freelancers in Northern California. A website (guildfreelancers.org) has been established with online recruiting tools, a members-only resources area being developed, and tie-ins with social networking sites.

Hundreds of journalists have been turning in their company press passes as newsrooms shrink. The Guild is working with community groups and other partners to strengthen the safety net and equip writers, photographers, web content providers and graphic artists the supports they need to work independently without sacrificing security.

“When I retired from the Chronicle after 33 years and began freelancing, I felt it was essential to stay involved in the Guild and the larger labor movement, whose ideals I embrace and whose support of working people is crucial in these parlous times,” said arts and music writer Jesse Hamlin. “I joined the Guild's freelancers unit because I wanted to stay connected with other writers and editors, to share information and ideas and to work collectively to get a fair shake for the work we do.”

Plans for a freelance unit – the first in the nation sponsored by a Guild local – have been germinating for a year. Union organizers say the unit will harness the power of numbers to support the needs of freelance journalists working in a broad spectrum of media. Longtime religion writer and author Don Lattin will oversee a rigorous process for credentialing journalists without traditional employment.

Standards will ensure the Guild Freelancer credential will deserve recognition.

“Our goal is not to exclude anyone based on the type of journalism they practice or the platform they use to publish or broadcast their work. But we need to separate the dabbler, the dilettante and the publicist from the ranks of freelance working journalists,” Lattin said. The Guild represents newsroom and commercial workers at the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, Bay Area News Group-East Bay and other leading organizations. The union’s traditional role is to negotiate pay, benefits and working conditions for groups of employees organized as bargaining units. The Freelance Unit is part of a broad new effort by the Guild to broaden its base at a time of industry turmoil. Other projects include support of the newly announced Bay Area News Project, a nonprofit collaboration of KQED, the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and financier-philanthropist Warren Hellman.

The freelance unit welcomes journalists who are no longer employed by a traditional media company and those who never have been. “We need some new approaches to reach workers in today’s economy,” said Carl Hall, a staff representative for the California Media Workers local, one of the many Chronicle reporters who left the paper during the past year. “Media workers may file from cafes or their own kitchens now, but we still need advocacy and community. We need to change our approach to make the Guild fit the mobile freelance workforce.”