CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS
Correcting a Freelance Fallacy
by Cathy Repola
 Cathy Repola |
Many of our members have a false sense of security in a business that is almost entirely freelance and has collective bargaining agreements geared toward that freelance environment. We receive phone calls from members who find themselves in a difficult situation at their workplace and believe that they are protected by the union agreements in ways that they are not.
There are various contracts our members work under and there are differences in the wages and working conditions. Generally speaking, our Guild contracts provide you with such things as vacation and holiday pay, night premiums, overtime payments, meal penalties, minimum calls, etc. However, if you work under the contracts that the vast majority of our LA-based members work under, you are considered a freelance employee, not a staff employee.
You may work at one company day-in and day-out for many years, but that does not mean you have any job entitlement. You are hired to perform certain duties but the job you are being hired to do is considered temporary in nature. If you work in a classification that has a weekly guarantee, the employer has no obligation to you other than week-by-week. If you are a daily hire, the only guarantee of work you have is day-by-day. Unless you have a written guarantee beyond a week or a day, you have no further claim to the job. However, if, for example, the company has taken action or violated any laws that may be protected by discrimination statutes, or you are subject to unlawful harassment, you may have rights outside the collective bargaining agreement and we would advise you of such.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news for those of you who may be surprised to learn this information, but we have so many members who are unaware of these facts that I felt this an important subject to broach. Much of the work I perform for the Guild pertains to grievances that members want to file. It never gets easier to have to tell a member that we can’t file a grievance because there isn’t a contract violation.
The particular issue I am writing about here does come up often and when I, or another staff member, explain that you had no guarantee of employment beyond a week or a day and that the company can replace you––regardless of the length of time you worked in that position at that company, or whether it was in the middle of a television episodic season, or two weeks into a feature when you thought you’d be there for the full post schedule ––it is always difficult for the member to accept.
I can understand why, and I wholeheartedly empathize with all of you who have had to face this situation. I have stated this before in previous columns, but, unfortunately, when something is ethically or morally wrong, it isn’t always a violation of the contract. While we will do absolutely everything we can to support you, we can’t always help you in the way you may hope or expect. This is not out of a lack of desire, I can assure you.
I can say with complete certainty and confidence that those of us who enforce the contracts for the Editors Guild do so because we believe in the cause and have an innate yearning to help people. It is difficult for us too when we are unable to do so.
Cathy Repola is the Assistant Executive Director of the Editors Guild.