I ‘m a freelancer – lucky me?

By Candy White

I recently got a new job in a restaurant. As I have already mentioned I am working as a cook for many years and it is now a means to financially support my Masters. As a professional cook, with more than 15 years of experience, I have been offered a zero hour contract. Having noticed that it is the latest trend to be offered this kind of contracts here in Holland, I had no choice but to sign it. To my surprise, I came across a colleague that was working in the restaurant as a freelancer. All these years I have never come across a freelance cook. I also met the girlfriend of a colleague there, that was a hairdresser and worked as a freelancer too, she is basically hiring a chair in a hair-salon.

In the neoliberal times we are living, I see that the concept of a state providing social security and provisions to employed citizens is being steadily replaced by the notion of a state that leaves people unprotected and totally alone in the hands of their employer. The choice is very narrow. It is a choice between Scylla and Charybdis, between two evils. On one hand we have zero hour contracts, that provide no security for a stable income – and on the other hand we have freelancing. Lets examine how much of an evil is freelancing, since the side effects of the zero hour contract are more or less evident.

As a freelancer it is believed that you earn more, that you have autonomy in the way you work, that you can choose the ways you can apply your work and in the end you are your own boss. What could be wrong with that? Freelance is not something new in our society. It has always been a way of employment, but I think it was more related to different kinds of services. For example, a merchant, a lawyer or an artist – these are professions that have been traditionally freelance. But now I see that freelancing is expanding in all levels and kinds of professions that so far have been non-freelance.

There is something I find interesting in a freelance cook or hairdresser. Considering the fact that they anyway have a relatively lower  hourly rate (e.g. than a lawyer), it seems that they are losing social security rights. They no longer have the right to unemployment benefits. I give an example; if you are a cook and, for whatever reason, let it be sickness or bad luck or an unknown factor, you cannot work, then you have no income and no right to an unemployment check. The fact is that whether you are working or not, there are monthly expenses (rent, health insurance, electricity etc.) that need to be paid. How can you pay your bills if you happen to have no work? The argument here would be that, as a freelancer, you are getting paid more than a regular salary. Ok, but is it so much more that can support you for a long time without work? Is it enough to pay for an insurance, for unemployment? From what I know from freelancers, this kind of insurance policies are far too expensive. It seems that your financial stability is constantly at risk. At the same time it seems that the “extra” money you may get as freelancer, serve then as a reserve in the bank for times of need….That could be a stressful factor in one’s life, couldn’t it?

What I find intriguing in this story, as a sociologist, is that these are signs of a transition, a moving away from an era where the state (at least in Europe) would offer some universal social provisions. By universal I mean that all citizens would have the right to these provisions. The underlying solidarity among people in such a society has been the basis for the stability and harmony societies like the Dutch have enjoyed so far. If citizens now are not receiving any state provisions and they have no social benefits, this fact could affect the solidarity among them, could tear the fabric of such a society apart. When I contemplate the future in these terms, I see us entering a new era, where people will have to be competitive with each other in order to achieve a minimum financial security for themselves. I see a competitive society ahead of me. Is competition the right condition for a society that aspires to live in harmony and have no stress of surviving? I would think that universal social security fosters harmony, whereas insecurity and stress champion the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest. Are we going back to medieval types of society, where one man’s death, was another man’s fortune? Is this the progress we are seeking for? Can we do something to improve our labour rights, or should we just let ourselves become prey to the fittest?