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 […]

Lobby Day in Albany

Four NWU-FSP members joined the Fund Excluded Workers Coalition on a lobby day trip to Albany in late January. As part of the coalition, we are advocating for New York to enact the Unemployment Bridge Program, a permanent $500 million fund that will provide the equivalent of unemployment insurance to workers excluded from traditional unemployment, […]

Inter-Union Town Hall on Artificial Intelligence

Dozens of members of NWU, WGAE, NewsGuild and NABET got together on Zoom in early February for a virtual town hall about AI in the newsroom. NewsGuild President Jon Schleuss opened the call by giving a brief overview of how ChatGPT works, followed by a quick demonstration of what that AI chatbot might spit out […]

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 […]

Freelance Isn’t Free is Coming to LA!

Los Angeles, June 28 – Yesterday the City Council Committee on Economic Development and Jobs voted unanimously to have the City Attorney draft an ordinance to make Freelance Isn’t Free the law in LA. The new law will  take effect on July 1, 2023, giving the City time to fund staff and enforcement mechanisms, and will coincide with […]

We Won! Freelance Isn’t Free Passes in NYS!

On Friday, June 3, the “Freelance Isn’t Free” bill sponsored by Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Harry Bronson passed both the Senate and the Assembly. The bill will move to the Governor’s desk, where it will await her signature to be signed into New York State law.  Thousands of freelancers—both those living in New York, […]

NWU Joins International Press Organizations Charging Israel with War Crimes

On May 27, the national officers, chapter chairs and delegates of the National Writers Union completed voting unanimously to join the case filed by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) with the International Criminal Court (ICC) charging Israel with war crimes for targeting journalists. We call all US press […]

New York May Day 2022: Workers took the lead

New York City has always been called a union town. This year, May Day was owned by workers and the oppressed than in previous years. As we talked with attendees to May Day events, they have two main talking points; the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine and the working class organizing wave in the USA. Anger […]