Transcript | Ep. 80: How to Work the Gig Economy

[Stinger]

Sara Horowitz: Freelancers were really feeling like they were screwed. Can I say that by the way?

Caroline: Oh, we have an explicit rating on iTunes. So please feel free to curse as much as you want.

Sara: Oh OK. Freelancers were really feeling like they were fucked.

[Theme music]

Caroline: Hey y’all, and welcome to Unladylike, the show that finds out what happens when women break the rules … and take advantage of explicit ratings. I’m Caroline

Cristen: And I’m fucking Cristen. And listeners you might remember that last year, we published an Unladylike episode called How to Slay Sexism Like a Pro with the fabulous hosts of the podcast Battle Tactics for Your Sexist Workplace. And in that, we answered listener questions about gender issues in stereotypical office environments.

Caroline: But Cristen, sexism, discrimination and workplace harassment doesn’t just happen in offices. Like, you and I are self-employed, and we’ve heard from a lot of listeners as well who are freelancers, side hustlers, and tip earners, and they feel lost about how to advocate for themselves on the job.

Cristen: That’s why today, we’re answering Unladylike listeners’ questions again. Only this time, we’re focusing on troubleshooting non-traditional employment, gig economy life, and claiming our worth from the bottom up.

Caroline: To help us do that, we’ve called in an expert. Sara Horowitz is the founder of the Freelancers Union, and now the CEO of Trupo, which provides dental and accident insurance to freelancers.

Sara: What I've really noticed after working for 20 plus years building up freelancer’s institutions, is you kind of have to get to a mountain top to see the next mountain top and get more and more altitude. And if women don't ever get to that altitude, they can't see the higher vista ahead. And I do feel like part of it is just seize it because nobody gives it to you. You know? The world can be so unbelievably sexist and you kind of have to really accept that as a reality. Not to say you shouldn't fight it, of course you should fight it, but be strategic and figure it out.

Caroline: Now, when Sara’s talking about “seizing it,” she doesn’t mean seizing it for yourself. Rather than solo career ladder climbing, Sara sees getting to mountaintop as a collective effort. And to be clear, there is no straightforward, easy breezy map to that mountaintop. But Sara’s not only going to break down why that is, but also how we can use the resources around us to -- as she says -- be strategic.

Cristen: It’s all to figure out: How do you handle workplace bs like a pro, when you aren’t working a typical 9-to-5?

[Stinger]

Caroline: We’re going to get to Unladylike listener questions in a minute, but first Cristen, why are so many unladies feeling so squeezed by our jobs? Whatever happened to the #girlboss glamour of the hustle?

Cristen: For one thing, we’re not just feeling the heat from our jobs. Affordable housing, childcare and health insurance are in short supply, and women owe two-thirds of the student loan debt in the US.

Caroline: Then, there’s the fact that secure, full-time employment with benefits is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. And this is where Sara Horowitz comes in. After graduating from law school, a labor law firm hired her as an independent contractor . . . but expected her to work like a full-timer.

Cristen: Yeah, this probably rings familiar to a lot of y’all: Sara put in her 40 hours per week, the law firm made her business cards, and she even was titled as a staff attorney … But in exchange, she received no benefits, like paid time off, health insurance or retirement savings. That raw deal got Sarah thinking ….

Sara: Well, what would be the next form of unionism? And without going into like a whole thing about labor law, but just kind of keep in the back of your mind, all manufacturing all the time, only employees can unionize. So it's like, well, we better figure out the next form of unionizing because independent contractors and solo-preneurs and so many others really need to come together to negotiate for things like benefits and training and community and all the things that we know that people do well when they're together.

Caroline: To clarify, freelancers and independent contractors are allowed to join unions. But federal labor laws, including the ones that require employers to bargain with unions, only apply to folks classified as employees. So what Sarah was envisioning was literally a new form of unionizing that isn’t centered around a specific industry or employer.

Cristen: In 2003, she launched the Freelancers Union with a simple, but at that time, fairly radical goal: to advocate for non-traditional workers.

Caroline: Now, why should unladies give a fuck about unionizing? Well, because collective action compounds your influence. That’s one reason why, for instance, the gender wage gap among unionized employees is about half that of non-unionized folks.

Cristen: But even though around two-thirds of Americans approve of unions, only 10% of us actually belong to one.

Caroline: That kind of statistic blows Sara’s mind because unionizing is in her blood. Her mother was a unionized teacher, her father was a union lawyer, and Sara’s grandfather was a VP of one of the earliest powerhouse unions in the US.

Cristen: It also That would be the Ladies Garment Workers Union, the ILGWU.

Caroline: Sara was steeped in her family’s labor history. In eighth grade, she even organized the girls in her school to go on strike for International Women’s Day (which u know would’ve gone viral were she in middle school today!) #amazing! #internationalwomen’sday! #sara!

Cristen: #Inspired, also I like #Sara.

Caroline: Yeah, there are now more than 350,000 members of the Freelancers Union she founded, and those members can access benefits like 401Ks, disability insurance, and legal help when clients aren’t paying them.

Sara: And then because the benefits started to be so good for freelancers, they started telling their friends, and that's how we started to really build up our lists. But it was also because we were engaging in advocacy and community and having meetings. So we were doing plenty of other things in addition to insurance.

Cristen: But one thing that the Freelancers Union can’t necessarily provide for is the solitary nature of freelance work. C, you and I spent a LOT of time working alone at home, which is both lovely and isolating.

Caroline: Which brings us to our first Unladylike listener question for Sara, from friend of the show Kristen Meinzer.

[Kristen Meinzer voicemail]

Kristen: Hey, Unladylike ladies - this is Kristen Meinzer calling. I am the co-host of a podcast called By the Book and also the co-host of We Love You and So Can You. And while I love hosting both of these shows, they only bring me into the office a couple of times a week, and the rest of the time I am on my own. I'm a freelancer. And what I have found is that sometimes I get really lonely, and I'm wondering if you have any advice for how to feel a sense of team while I'm out here by myself most of the time. Would be really, really appreciated. Thank you so much. Bye-Bye.

Sara: It's really - the successful freelancer is the one who is connected. Because when you work alone at home, it's lonely. And that's when anxiety just really plays a huge part. And you get so scared and you don't know what the future is going to hold because you're freelance, and it's not a steady gig. And then it's like over. But you need to have people that you meet for coffee with. You need to be in some kind of group. You need to just find the things that make you feel human and make them the top priority in every day, and don't skimp on them. And so it's not that somebody has the right freelancer gene, it's that they make it work for them. But I also just want to say this. It's not so great to work 9 to 5, 40 hours a week for a job you hate. So we have to make the life that we want. And I don't mean that in a like hyper individualistic way. I think that that's where you have to find the love and the joy and make that a priority for everybody.

Cristen: Be the coffee date you want to see in the world, fellow Kristen!

Caroline: We’re gonna take a quick break. When we come back, Sara answers Unladylike listeners’ questions on freelancing while sick and what happens when you’re sexually harassed and there’s no HR to address it.

Cristen: Don’t go away!

[Midroll ad 1]

Cristen: We’re back DIYing some HR with Freelancers Union founder Sara Horowtiz.

Caroline: So, no surprise, when you’re self-employed or work as a freelancer, paid time off typically isn’t part of the package. That can get especially precarious during flu season.

Cristen: This is from Alyssa, who wants to know, “How do you handle being sick as a freelancer? I have the flu and it's knocking me out of work for 10 days. Obviously, I don't have sick time, and it's not like there's someone else who can just fill in for me to make my deadlines. This sucks and it's enough to make me feel like working independently is not worth it.”

Sara: So, Alyssa, I just want to tell you this. I've done so many focus groups with freelancers. We would do this hypothetical, and we would say what would happen if you couldn't work? And freelancers would say, I would take the computer in bed with me, and I would keep doing my work. And we say, no, no, no, that's not the hypothetical. Like, you literally can't work. And it's such a panic point for freelancers that they cannot literally imagine it. And that's because there's no unemployment insurance. There's nothing that helps you when you're hitting the - the bottom downside and you can't work. And that means no money comes in. And so Alyssa is speaking to what happens to every freelancer at one point in their life. It used to be that freelancers were told, You should just have an emergency fund. You need to save. If you didn't save, you are a failure and you're a bad person and you - you know something's wrong with you. Instead of saying, this is a perfect example where we should have insurance and some kind of collective activity, that brings the price down, because as life happens, we will all get sick at different times. And it really goes to a concept that I call meaningful independence. It's not that you're isolated, it's that you're secure, that you are connected to other people. So Alyssa, when you're down and out and you have the flu, you have a friend or a colleague or someone you can call who's going to work for you so that you don't get screwed. And you would do the same for them.And so, Alyssa, you'll figure out whether freelancing is worth it for you. But the truth is the most since the most successful freelancers — and when I say success, I don't mean just money. The people who lead the best lives are the ones who are connected to other people, and when they have a down spell, they have others to count on. And when they're doing well, they're out there helping other people. It's that reciprocity. It's mutualism.

Caroline: For some, freelancing gives them the flexibility they need, and for others, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Cristen: One question - this is sort of sort of a big one, but one that we got from a listener who sort of been struggling with the freelance life - because I - I think especially for younger women today, freelancing and working for yourself is portrayed at least as like, you know, modern boss babes. Yes, we can do it. Hustle, hustle. But in reality, it's much less glamorous. And she wanted to know who is the freelance life, like, really sustainable for? And just wondering what your - if you had a quick take on that.

Sara: Yep. It's - it's not, “Who is it sustainable for?” It's, “How do you make it sustainable?” And so there are these kind of tried and true, which is you want to find some something steady that grounds and anchors you. So I've heard freelancers talk about it in a bunch of different ways. But basically you put your work into three parts. There's the anchoring work. Then there's the work that's the middle work that helps you develop like you want to switch into another area, and so you start to take on that work. Maybe it doesn't pay well, maybe it's only teeny bit of it, but you start practicing. And then there's the third, which is like, you know, shit, the rent is due. I have no money. I'm going to go on a platform like Fiver or Upwork or I'm gonna drive. And it's not ideal, but it pays the rent. And so it's that ability to start to see your work life in those three ways.

Caroline: Next up, we’ve got a question from our very own producer Sam Lee.

[Sam Lee voicemail]

Sam: Hi, unladies. It is your producer, Sam Lee. I have a question because I am in fact a freelancer. So, when MeToo started, one thing I thought about a lot was how you know when there’s sexual harassment in the workplace and you are in a workplace where there is no HR how that’s really complicated. So you know if you're a freelance media worker or in something like a service industry job and you don’t have HR, how do you report or handle sexual harassment when there is no HR?

Sara: Yeah, Sam, forgive, I'm just gonna give a quick employment history, an employment law 101. So we have an EEOC Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And yes, you are right. It's only for employees. Freelancers are not eligible. So. It's in certain cities like New York City you could go and file a claim, but it's a very tough thing when you're all alone. So, if you are if you're being sexually assaulted or harassed or made to feel uncomfortable or bullied, the best thing that you can do is to start with your work, the kind of work you do and think about where are people coming together, whether it's a Facebook group, whether it's at your church. Look at your community organizing groups that are near you and start to talk to them because they're going to have a much better idea of what you can do locally and where there are laws and protections, where there may already be an initiative about it, but also to be able to find out what to do, because there really are things that you can do that obviously culminate in suing somebody. But, that's a giant thing. And you want to see if there are things you can do to stop it right away.

Caroline: So, it’s illegal for an employer to retaliate against an employee who speaks up about sexual harassment. But it’s not so clear cut if you’re an independent contractor.

Cristen: Other legal perks that don’t extend to us non-employees? The Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Pay Act, unemployment eligibity, and that whole bit in the Civil Right Act about no employment discrimination allowed if it’s based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin…

Caroline: On a positive note, California, Pennsylvania and Washington state all have laws protecting independent contractors from discrimination. … Just 47 more states to go. And you can always consult groups like Workplace Fairness about laws in your state.

Cristen: So Sara, we also wanted to know about a dynamic that complicates the scenario for a lot of freelancers and contract workers - which is when the harassment isn’t necessarily coming from the people paying you, but from someone else your client is working with

Sara: Yeah, you know. You're getting right to the heart of why we have no safety net so that this is a giant hole in the middle of it because there is no official place to go if you're not unionized, there's not a government agency. Of course, if it rises to the level of a crime, you know, you can always go and to the district attorney. But that's kind of not the common thing that people are dealing with. And so, again, it really is about finding out what you can do in your situation, which is probably a local one. And so you want to talk to other people in a group to find out. like who are the bad employers. And if an employer is going to go or a company is going to go and just allow these conditions to repeat, then people will find that out and not want to work for that company. And I think that's probably something that again, that goes in a group where you're sharing your experience and learning if other people are having the same ones and then having somebody from an organization reach out to the company and say, you know, our information is that that's your company. And by the way, it’s - people are sharing it. It's gonna be kind of guerrilla tactics here because we don't have protections that we should.

Caroline: We also did some digging after talking to Sarah and discovered an important legal tip for freelancers called a sexual harassment clause....

Cristen: Yeah, I first ran across on a creative freelancer platform called Honeybook — and full disclosure, we’ve advertised for them on Unladylike before and promise this isn’t sponcon. So Honeybook conducted a user survey on sexual harassment within the creative economy — think wedding photographers, event planners, graphic designers. Sixty-five percent of respondents had been sexually harassed by an attendee of an event at which they were working. And it jumped out to me not because it’s was surprising that the sexual harassment was happening but because I’d never considered workplace sexual harassment in that context. And I was a cater waiter in college Caroline!

Caroline: Now, cater waiters probably can’t take advantage of a sexual harassment clause, BUT if you’re conducting business through freelance contracts, you can include some lawyer speak in there that basically says “if you sexually harass me, or somebody at your wedding sexually harasses me, and I report you, you’ve still gotta pay me.”

Cristen: Also shout out to the freelancing platform Fiverr that includes a sexual harassment clause in its standard freelancer terms. So those kinds of clauses are easily accessible now online. When possible, do your Google homework to find out if whomever you’re thinking of working with has a sketchy reputation.

Caroline: We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’ll dig deeper into sexual harassment in the workplace where it festers the most.

Cristen: Plus.. we take a look at what happens when unions flex their power

Caroline: Stick around

[Midroll ad 2]

Caroline: So Cristen, while we're talking about sexual harassment-prone employment situations, we've gotta take a minute for service jobs. The restaurant industry is the single largest source of sexual harassment claims.

Cristen: And y'know what doesn't help matters? Tipping. Women make up 66% of America’s tipped workforce.

Caroline: And women who rely on tips for the bulk of their income are twice as likely to be harassed as women who make a higher base wage.

Cristen: Plus, the emotional labor that goes into keeping tipping customers happy is probably disguising a sad fact: Your perky server may actually be miserable. According to a 2018 study, the stress of putting on an emotional show that doesn’t match how you’re actually feeling is a quick ticket to burnout

Caroline: OK Sara … we’ve got a question from Christie about the emotional side effects of service with a smile…

[Christie voicemail]

Christie: How can I manage this stress of emotional labor at work? Working in the service industry, we are taught to always be positive in dealings with both our coworkers and those we serve. While I do understand the reasoning, I also find it to be stifling. It makes my anxiety increase and has me feeling less genuine if I can't share frustrations. I'm curious to know more about how this kind of putting aside our emotions in one arena affects us in the long run.

Sara: So. Christy raises so many, so many things in that voicemail. You know what I'm really struck by you just can't do it alone because life is really hard. And there are just these moments where it's really hard, and you really have to find somebody that you can talk to. And the truth is that on the job, when it's part of your job in the moment, you have to figure it out because you don't want to get fired. But you also have to start to say, how do I start to improve these conditions at work? and trying to think about how could the workflow change, and would it be just because one person said something? No, but that you have to have a sense of of an ability to improve your environment. One thing, though, that's I think really important and a big difference for freelancers is they have the ability to quit much more than full-timers, and that I think you can't underestimate. And for freelancers, it's always about building up a portfolio of work because that is a really important thing. The reason I say that isn't that you should just give up and just quit, but that it gives you the confidence to know that you don't have to take it and that you do have these options. One other thing that Christy talks about that I think is a universal and it's not just a universal for Christie, for her work, but it's a universal for every single one of us. And it's about the anxiety that people are feeling right now. And people feel like this is something that's happening just to them, that they have to change their life circumstances. But I really think that we're not tying it to economics and realizing we're in a giant speedup just like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, if you remember that old classic movie where he's like working on an assembly line. It's getting really fast. But so are - so are we. And work doesn't end. You know, we're on all the time. Christie has to be moving fast and has no time to reflect. And that's because we don't have unions in America anymore. You know, that's because we - we don't have unions the way Canada has unions, like it's just north of us. Why should it be so different?

Caroline: Yeah. I know, why can't we just get there?

Sara: Right. Well, you know, it's because of of our labor laws. But I also think that this is where we - no worker, no worker movement just waited for a green light from government like get out there and start to organize, declare what it is, is a union and just go forward. You know, that's what the teachers did throughout the South in the last two, three years. And what's so amazing was they weren't just fighting for their own salaries. Like in West Virginia, they were saying our schools are so weak because our state doesn't fund it. If you care about kids, you need to support teachers. But because our laws don't make it so simple to unionize, those teachers use social media and they won.

Caroline: To be clear, it’s technically against the law to fire employees for organizing, but it’s still VERY tough to pull off in less union-friendly states. And Cristen that’s part of why I’ve LOVED seeing those headlines about the teachers’ unions the past two years. The strikes sprang up in different states for different reasons — they aren’t necessarily striking for the same demands in West Virginia that they are in Arizona — but they were a really effective power flex against shrinking salaries and underfunded schools.

Cristen: We’re also seeing non-traditional workers across the financial spectrum are pulling together, too. McDonald’s workers across the country have been striking for a $15 minimum wage. … Ten thousand underpaid childcare providers in California just organized a union led by women of color. … And in Pittsburgh, 90 contract workers at Google unionized, which is a rare move in the tech industry.

Caroline: Yeah, we even heard from one Unladylike listener named Francesca who is a PART of that effort at Google! They wrote, “I gotta tell ya, it feels pretty powerful to be organizing a union campaign. … Tech industries never unionize, so if we can pull this off, it would have such a ripple effect throughout the tech industries for exploited workers to gain some agency and speak up against a lot of unfair conditions.”

Cristen: So this that leads us so perfectly into what's kind of like the overarching question of this episode and why we wanted to talk to you specifically because mainstream feminism has for so long been focused on breaking the glass ceiling. Looking up, you know, that at the C-suites and the people at the top of the corporate food chain. But our big question is, how do the women who make up like the majority of minimum wage employees, tipped workers, you know. And now a growing group of freelancers. What do we need to be doing to empower kind of from the bottom up, rather from the top down? If that makes sense.

Sara: Sure. We have to go back to building up our institutions. And when I say institutions, I don't mean like eyes glaze over. I mean mutual aid societies, cooperatives, unions, like all the stuff that actually is incredibly fun and makes your life so much better. And it's not always fun becauser sometimes you have struggles like strikes and battles. But I think the most important thing is that people need to start where they are. So you start in your church or your faith-based group. You start with the women that are like you that you're working with. You look at organizations like the Domestic Workers Unions and start to think about like, how do I start finding people? I think one thing we often forget when you look at almost every single social movement, it's started by people coming together in solidarity to solve a problem. And so I think sometimes we - we forget that. And I think that is - it has to be a shift in our culture. We're not isolated individuals. We're builders. We have to build together. And that means we have to find people with a common fight and a common interest.

Cristen: OK Caroline, I have an unladylike theory for you.

Caroline: OK

Cristen: My theory is that we’re entering a new era of labor feminism. In our adulthoods, at least, first it was all lean in and negotiate better (oh, and it also helps to be rich, white and Ivy-League-educated!). Then came the second wave, which was all about #girlbosses and the #sidehustle and not being afraid to overuse hashtags.

Caroline: So what’s this new era, then?

Cristen: It’s a post 9-to-5 feminist era. Because freelancing isn’t going away. Full-time employment’s not coming back anytime soon. And if feminists want to work out issues in the workplace, it’s all about reaching out, instead of reaching up. Something’s in the air, and all I know is it sounds a lot more like AOC than Sheryl Sandberg, yknow what I mean?

Caroline: I do, I do

Cristen: And look, if I’ve gotta feel the Bern, I’ll feel the Bern, I’ll feel the churn, I just wanna feel a way to earn. And scene. Listeners, what do you think?

Caroline: Email us at hello@unladylike.co, find us on social @unladylikemedia or join our private facebook group and jump into’ the thread for this episode.

Cristen: To learn more about Sara Horowitz’s work, you can check out the Freelancer’s Union at freelancersunion.org and Trupo (trupo.com). And if ya are a 9 to 5-er, check out our episode that inspired this one! How to Slay Sexism Like a Professional

Caroline: Visit unladylike.co to find this episode’s sources and transcript. Plus, you can pick up tickets for our East Coast TOUR this spring!

Cristen: A huge, special thanks to all y’all who’ve signed up to support us on Patreon. If you want ad-free Extra Unladylike episodes, head over to patreon.com/unladylikemedia and subscribe.

Caroline: Nora Ritchie and Sam Lee are the producers of Unladylike. Abigail Keel is our senior producer. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing, sound design, and additional music is by Casey Holford. Executive producers are Chris Bannon, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.

Cristen: This podcast was created by your hosts, Cristen Conger

Caroline: And Caroline Ervin of Unladylike Media.

Cristen: Next week…

Margaret Cho: Tattooing myself is a claiming of my own body. Like this body's mine and I'm not going to let it go. I'm not going to allow a societal expectations of what a woman's body should be to interfere with my own celebration of self. So, there's important reasons behind it. But because the reasons are so important, I can get real dumb tattoos.

Caroline: We’re talking to comedian Margaret Cho about her very unladylike tattoos! Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike so you don’t miss this episode. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Cristen: And remember, got a problem?

Caroline: Get unladylike.