Project Name:Freelancers Union
Challenge: Freelance workers lack healthcare and other benefits enjoyed by full-time employees.
Solution: Form a union through which freelancers can use their collective power for group purchasing of insurance and advocacy.
Update: The Freelancers Union continues to grow and has recently announced plans to start its own insurance company. Fed up with rapidly soaring premiums, the group's founder, Sara Horowitz, set up the Freelancers Insurance Company with the goal of offering a cheap system with good coverage.
Former labor lawyer Sara Horowitz founded an organization in 1995 to meet the needs of America's growing independent workforce. That organization grew into what is today known as the Freelancers Union. A national, nonprofit organization based in New York City, the Freelancers Union offers members benefits, resources and advocacy.
The number of freelance workers in the United States now stands at an estimated 30 percent of the entire workforce. As businesses try to cut costs and increase their flexibility, independent workers are becoming more common. These independent workers are known by many names: freelancers, consultants, independent contractors, temps, part-timers, contingent employees and the self-employed.
The Freelancers Union strives to build a safety net for America's independent workforce. While it does not engage in collective bargaining on behalf of its members like traditional unions, it meets other pressing needs. It offers members a menu of benefits including health coverage, dental insurance, disability and life insurance, with different fees charged depending on what a member wants or needs. The union now has 63,000 members across the country and offer life, disability, and dental insurance throughout the country, and health insurance in 31 states.
Today Upwork and Freelancers Union released their 2019 Freelancing in America study. Among its findings: Freelancers doing skilled services earn a median rate of $28 an hour. That's more per hour. Freelancers Union will not pay a claim I submitted where i fell and broke a bone in my face. They are trying to say I was in a car accident, but I was not. I had to go to the emergency room and get x-rays and cat scans on my head, I fell face first on some pavement and the x-rays showed I fractured my ocular bone, as well as broke my finger.
Because of its growth in membership and fees, the Freelancers Union is now almost entirely self-sustaining. The challenges ahead lay in finding solutions for the challenges facing members and instilling in them a sense that they're part of a social movement. Says Horowitz:
What's really important is that we think ahead. What is going to be the next safety net going forward? Business is making it clear what it needs, and the changes that it needs to grow. Workers now have to start saying, 'In this mobile world, what do we need? What's our safety net going to look like?'
Watch Video: Benefits Denied
Freelancing in America: 2018.1.E D E L M AN I N T E L L I G E N C E / © 2 0 1 8Freelancing inAmerica: 2018COMMISIONED BY UPWORK ANDFREELANCERS UNIONOctober 2018.E D E L M AN I N T E L L I G E N C E / © 2 0 1 8Study Objectives2Upwork and Freelancers Union commissioned Edelman Intelligence, an independent research firm, to conduct theirfifth annual study of the U.S. Freelance workforce with these objectives:1. Forest rescue bubble game. Quantify freelancing: Size the workforce and trends since 20142. Assess training: Workforce readiness in the face of rapid change3. Understand the freelancing lifestyle: Drivers and barriers4.
Examine political tendencies of freelancersThis deck is organized in sections to detail results on each objective.E D E L M AN I N T E L L I G E N C E / © 2 0 1 8Methodology. An online survey of 6,001 U.S. Adults who have done paid work in the past 12 months. Data collected June 21, 2018 – July 12, 2018 by independent research firm Edelman Intelligence. This is the fifth year the survey has been conducted, allowing for trend data. Data collected in the summers of 2014-2017 isreferenced throughout the analysis and indicates the percentage point change over the past four years. Percentage point differences between waves are noted where applicable and noteworthy in the report.
Results were weighted to ensure demographic representation in line with the United States Bureau of LaborStatistics’ 2017 Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey. Margin of error: Overall: ±1.2% at the 95% level of confidence. Freelancers: ±2.1%, Full-time Freelancers: ±4.0%,Full-time Non-freelancers: ±1.9%. Audiences surveyed: U.S.
Workers OverallU.S. Adults 18+ who have earnedincome from work within the past12 months, including bothfreelancers and non-freelancersFreelancersIndividuals who have engaged in supplemental, temporary, project- orcontract-based work, within the past 12 monthsNon-freelancersIndividuals who earned income through work but have not engaged insupplemental, temporary, project- or contract-based work, within the past12 months.N=6,001N=2100N=39013.E D E L M AN I N T E L L I G E N C E / © 2 0 1 8Quantifyingfreelancing:Growthover timeMore than 1 in 3 Americans freelanced this year.