Senator Scott Wiener announces CA Senate Bill 988, the Freelance Worker Protection Act

Senator Wiener Introduces Bill to Expand Freelance Worker Protections SACRAMENTO – January 31, 2024 — Today, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) announced Senate Bill 988 (SB 988), the Freelance Worker Protection Act. SB 988 provides basic protections — enforced by the State Labor Commissioner and the Attorney General — for freelance workers, including the right […]

NWU Releases Platform and Principles for Policy on Generative AI

After many months spent organizing, strategizing, and working collectively towards a draft both ambitious in scope and reflective of our members’ wide-ranging experiences and perspectives, the NWU Generative AI Working Group has at last ratified our Platform and Principles for Policy on Generative AI. (The final vote was 95.8% in favor, 4.2% opposed. No abstentions.) […]

Creators call for action on AI copyright exceptions

An exceptionally diverse coalition of creative workers including the National Writers Union (NWU) and other writers, illustrators, photographers, graphic artists, digital media workers, journalists, novelists, playwrights, composers, and songwriters today issued a joint call for action to redress the damage being done by copying of our creative work, without our permission and without compensation, to […]

NWU Urges IL Gov. Pritzker to Sign the Freelance Worker Protection Act

The National Writers Union today called on Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker to sign a proposed new law designed to protect freelance writers, graphic artists, photographers, online content providers, website designers and numerous other contract workers from being cheated out of all or part of their pay. The president of the Writers Union, Larry Goldbetter, urged […]

NWU Stands with WGA!!!

All About the Writers Strike: What Does the WGA Want and Why Are They Fighting So Hard for it? (explainer by NWU Freelance Solidarity Project member Eric Thurm)

Freelance Isn’t Free Passes in L.A.

The Los Angeles City Council has passed a city-wide version of Freelance Isn’t Free, which will enact some much-needed basic protections for freelancers in the city. The city’s iteration of the law is comparatively limited, applying only to freelancers who live in the city of Los Angeles proper. However, we are confident that the LA Freelance Isn’t Free […]

Writers and “Generative AI”

How will “generative artificial intelligence” affect writers and other media workers? To ask the question in this way almost seems to imply that we are passive objects  of forces unleashed by venture capitalists and Internet platforms. But as a union, we don’t accept a role of passive victimhood. Our goal is to use the power […]

Freelance Isn’t Free Slowly Moves Forward

After the New York state legislature passed Freelance Isn’t Free in June, elected officials nationwide—and NWU’s legislative work—took a summer break. Now, heading into fall and 2023, we have several legislative campaigns going across the country, and plenty of opportunities to get involved. In New York, we’re still waiting for Governor Kathy Hochul to sign […]

The Nation and the National Writers Union Reach an Agreement

This article first appeared in The Nation (September 6, 2022) The challenges freelance journalists face are no secret: payments delayed for months (sometimes failing to arrive at all), editors ghosting, while long and often uncompensated hours and isolation are all part of the job. Freelancers also pay for their own work expenses and health care […]

Media Workers Plan “Freelance Isn’t Free” Campaign for IL

Chicago, IL – July 21: Today, about 20 freelance media workers gathered for a happy hour to learn more about the Freelance Isn’t Free law. This was the first in-person event hosted in Chicago by the Freelance Solidarity Project (FSP), the Digital Media division of NWU.  Writers, editors, critics, fact-checkers, data reporters and production assistants […]