Quote, unquote: why freelancers need professional help getting rates up

Forcing big media outfits like Rogers & Transcon & CanWest and Torstar to pay more to freelancers seems an impossible task to most writers I know. Of course, writing a densely-researched, skilfully nuanced 3,000 word feature is impossible for most people who aren’t professional journalists. My point is, that’s what professional union people do for a living and if musicians & actors can be unionized so, presumably, can freelancer writers and editors.

-- Well-known Toronto freelancer David Hayes, commenting on why a freelance union might be able to do what individual writers cannot. (It's part of a discussion on the private Toronto Freelance Editors and Writers list (TFEW) about the challenges facing freelancers.)

The fledgling Canadian Freelance Union is still signing people up and hopes soon to have its founding annual general meeting, probably at a university where it can be combined with seminars on freelance issues, according to Michael OReilly, the president. In a recent e-mail, he said:

We're still trying to get to the negotiating table at any of the major newspaper publishers. All have revised the standard freelance contracts in the past 6 months, making them more onerous and ugly. Just when I think it can't get worse, the next version comes out that proves me wrong.