CRN Argentina

SITUATION OF FREELANCE CARTOONISTS AND MEDIA WORKERS

By Ana von Rebeur
CRN Argentina and CRN correspondent
February 2004

A poll of freelance journalism workers in 57 countries resulted in a report divided by regions. (FIP- OIT Bruselles , 1999 : www.ifj.org)

Conclusions say that freelancers are left out of the collective group of fellow employees, and have to pay themselves the costs of social security, taxes and retirement.

Freelancers can’t fine any syndicate willing to negotiate their work conditions and salaries. Ironically, freelancers are usually more prepared and better equipped than full time personnel, as they have to pay their own costs for their working environment.  

The constant lowering budget and salary rationalization ongoing in publishing houses makes the editor contract more freelance personnel each time to lower costs as they can make the worker to pay his own sources to do the work. The vulnerability of free lance workers grows fast, because they don’t have any warranties on being contracted for a fixed time, and they still have to pay their  daily costs to do the same work they could be doing at the employer’s expenses. The freelance journalist doesn’t have social help, maternity leaves, paid holidays, or medical security or free paid days in case of illness.

Making the situation worse, in bad economic years of work, an employer who pays taxes or social security may go to bankrupt.  

Even with full time workers in Europe, the tendency is to force the full time employees to go independent and to pay their own taxes, acting as “false free lance” employers. The alternative to the journalists who refuse these conditions is being fired under false accusations (being absent, poor performance, etc). They are being forced into strange “business partnerships” or forced to buy into possibly illegal actions of the publishing house, a veiled way to lower their salaries.

With a contrary opinion, Brazilian cartoonist Amorim says that by being a freelance worker you turn your employers into customers, getting more freedom and security. Some feel this is a false security and that the same employer wants us to believe it is convenient for us, but it is not so. In this situation, the editor saves up to a 45% on social securities costs that have to be faced by the freelance employees themselves. They win less and their work security gets weaker and weaker.

In Argentina, in the last ten years, permanent staff journalists have reduced by 80% in most of the press houses. Free lance journalists went from 200 to more than 2500. Daily working times passed from 6 to 14 hours. Official numbers say that 40% of journalists work free lance, But in fact the number is much larger because in the last year many cartoonists and journalists were working “in black”: in a non declared way. (Daniel Das Neves, General Secretary of the UTPBA- Press Workers Union of Buenos Aires “Observatorio de los Medios, Dec 2003)

Author’s rights:

Author’s rights are meant to protect the intellectual property of cartoonists and are especially important for freelance workers. There are economic rights and moral rights. Freelance cartoonists are most vulnerable because the editor may manipulate and distort their work. Workers don’t sue the editors because trials and lawyers are too expensive, and Justice costs usually takes more than the amount of money claimed.

17 syndicates in Europe say that freelancers don’t get any compensation from works that was asked but finally is not published.  Cartoonists usually accept an assignment in an oral arrangement on a totally informal way, without any eyewitnesses, and they don’t have a way to make a claim in case the work is not published or the oral contract is not respected.   Works that are assigned but not published are never paid, except in India where depending on the status of the worker, some times they are paid.  Most of freelancers don’t receive any economic benefit in case the editor publishes his work a second time.  In Latin America and Africa it is common for the editor to change the work so that it says something for the benefit of some entrepreneur, politician or economical interest.  The cartoonist may be held responsible for something he or she never said.   No matter how much he works the freelance is always paid less than the full worker .

Unions or Syndicates:

In Africa’s countries of Botswana, Gambia, República de Níger, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, the government owns the most of the media, TV, radio broadcasting system and newspapers. The workers in those media act like state functionaries and it is forbidden for them to affiliate themselves with a syndicate. Syndicates are forbidden in Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates.   In Iraq and Libya, workers may affiliate themselves with0 state syndicates. It is clear that the poorer the country, the more freelance workers it has .

In Europe there are about 25% freelance workers and they are growing. In Uganda, 74% of the workers in journalism are freelance. In Zambia, the dramatic situation shows than among 700 journalist working in the country, 175 are freelances, but the syndicate says that on 200 affiliated journalists, none of them are freelance. This number suggests that freelancing is getting to be the norm instead of the exception. Even in Germany, cartoonist Marlene Pohle says that she works for publishing houses with only one full time employee who considers herself “out of fashion” for being the only one who is not a free lance worker.

Freelance workers are often not recognized as workers, but as unemployed persons who have certain skills in some form of communication, be it under a written or fine arts trade.

In Asia and Oceania, everyone says that freelancing damages work conditions, stepping on the workers rights. Except for India, Korea and Mongolia, every country said that editors contract freelance in a limited time frame to avoid contracting new full time workers .

Latina America has a 47% freelance journalists. Argentina legal system doesn’t recognize freelance as a state of serious employment. Freelancers never get an official identification, and syndicates never negotiate with employers on behalf of individual cases. The employer is the one who fixes the price of the work, and that means a “Take it or leave it” situation for the worker. It is important to point that our work is often exploited by third parties without giving the cartoonist credit or payment. This is a flagrant robbery of our ideas.

In a case where my work was robbed I consulted the syndicate lawyer who told me, “It is not smart for you to turn against the media, or you’ll loose a potential future employer”.

According to legislation Argentina, Freelancers are not officially recognized as workers. A full time journalist in Argentina is considered a “permanent collaborator”. This defines a “permanent collaborator” as anyone who has published 24 or more collaborations in one year in a same publication. Once the worker publishes article or cartoon number 24, a dependency relation between worker and publishing house begins, and they enter the condition of full time worker. In this case, if they are fired or no longer published, they have the right to get monetary compensation or indemnification. However, in this case the regulation that would seem to protect the worker goes against him. NOT A SINGLE EDITOR accepts to go on publishing the works of the same worker for a long time, because they are trying not to publish collaboration number 23 in the same year. In this way, all workers are going around in different publishing houses because they don’t last long in any place.  They cannot get their own place or name in any magazine or newspaper.

The Government has made new rules that instead of protecting workers are going against them. One journalist forced the employer to pay a double compensation that he deserved by law.  Of course, this ended up in nobody hiring new employees, and this resulted in a great increase in “black employment.” The fired employee had to make extra- legal arrangements in order to get the money as soon as possible, not wanting to undergo a long trial in order to wait to see if they pay him or not even by law. 

North America has 56% of freelancers. And that doesn’t mean the job places are growing. “Tasini vs The New York Times” trial serves now as a warning that communications workers have the right to be consulted before the employer decides to publish a work for a second time. 

A Final Word:

The only and biggest press syndicate in Argentina -UTPBA- Press Workers Union of Buenos Aires – has finally launched a much promised full color magazine called “Observatorio de los Medios” – “ Media Observatory” , on  December  2003.

It is distributed freely to all of the more than two thousand affiliates, sending them by post. It has a lot of opinions on censorship freedom of expression, and columns written but dozens of journalists. Cartoonists should take note: Not a single Argentine cartoonist was invited to take part in this first issue, nor were cartoons mentioned on any page. The magazine is beautifully illustrated by cartoons of Cuban artist Angel Boligán, resident in Mexico and a collaborator of Excelsior newspaper.

I am very fond of his work, and I have nothing against making him well known in Argentina. I told the syndicate publishers so. But I also wonder if this kind of thing - the Argentina Press Workers Union inviting a Cuban- Mexican artist to illustrate all the pages of its house organ– doesn’t mean Argentinean cartoonists are being ignored, as if we are not part of the country’s press workers. They could have kept a single corner for local cartoonists but they didn’t.   I sent them a letter asking for the reasons, and also offering to write something from a cartoonists point of view.  After a two months, I am still waiting for an answer.

The answers lies in this silence: Argentina Press Union doesn’t want to represent Argentina’s cartoonists. Even worse , they choose to ignore us . 

Ana von Rebeur is cartoonist , writer and journalist
President of FECO Argentina – Federation of Cartoonists Organizations
CRN correspondent
www.fecoweb.org- www.fecoargentina.com.ar
www.anavonrebeur.com.ar
anavon@sinectis.com.ar
 

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