This fall, the Freelance Solidarity Project elected its first ever organizing committee, made up of 12 members who will spend the next year helping digital media freelancers organize and fight for better working conditions. Last Friday, the committee hosted its first happy hour, welcoming members and non-members alike to the midtown bar Faces and Names for drinks and small bites and (as always) to talk shop about the digital media industry.
Since the organizing committee’s election, the FSP has been holding monthly new member orientation meetings (which are open to anyone who’s interested in learning more about the project) and general meetings, where members meet at the National Writers Union offices to share concerns and goals in a private, group setting, and begin to talk about how best to organize. FSP members based outside of New York can call in to general meetings.
FSP currently has around 170 members signed up to the project; the organizing committee aims to bring that number up to 200 by year end. Looking to 2020, the organizing committee will continue to help the broader membership mobilize around various issues specific to digital media freelancers. These include creating resources to share rates (as well as initiating campaigns to increase rates), developing letters of agreement with various publications to raise industrywide standards, collaborating with other unions like the Writers Guild of America, East and the NewsGuild, and more.
If any NWU members have questions about FSP, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Frida Garza at frida.garza@gmail.com.
NWU is the sole provider of IFJ Press Passes to freelance journalists in the U.S.