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Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Citizen with Bartun Day, a show

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Speaker 1: where we reimagine the word citizen as a verb, reclaim

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Speaker 1: it from those who weaponized it, and remind ourselves how

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Speaker 1: to wield our collective power. This is a new episode.

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Speaker 1: I'm Barton Day. This show is about all of us

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Speaker 1: reclaiming our collective power. And that doesn't just mean in politics.

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Speaker 1: It also means in the economy. It means we need

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Speaker 1: to look at our work lives and ask is our

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Speaker 1: productivity value by society? Are we powering an economy that

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Speaker 1: benefits the many or the few? Are we just widgets

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Speaker 1: in a machine with no rights? Or are we agents

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Speaker 1: of the economy who have choices about how our contribution

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Speaker 1: shape our lives, our neighborhoods, our environment. We took on

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Speaker 1: many of these questions in our previous episode, Making Work

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Speaker 1: Work for Everyone. That was with Michelle Miller and Sarojiyarraman,

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Speaker 1: and we remained very grateful for both of their contributions.

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Speaker 1: But the questions we have on this topic are too

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Speaker 1: big to fit in just that one episode. So here

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Speaker 1: is a bonus episode focused on one type of worker

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Speaker 1: and a question we got from Ned in Madison Wisconsin,

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Speaker 1: who asked a lot of the folks that I know,

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Speaker 1: I have a lot of work experiences independent contractors, and

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Speaker 1: I noticed there's a significant amount of shifting of hiring practices,

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Speaker 1: particularly in tech industries and other ones, and people who

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Speaker 1: are self employeed, you know, a lot of them are

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Speaker 1: in really bad positions because they're essentially on their own

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Speaker 1: and they don't have a lot of the backup of

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Speaker 1: being a full time employee. And I've often wondered if

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Speaker 1: there's an opportunity for independent contractors to actually leverage power

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Speaker 1: away from employers through unionization of industries that aren't unionized,

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Speaker 1: or more collective action. And I'm wondering if that's something

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Speaker 1: that also even people who are full time employed might

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Speaker 1: be able to join in on as well. I'm curious

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Speaker 1: to your thoughts. Ned. We've been wondering about this as well,

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Speaker 1: so we decided to go deeper on this question of

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Speaker 1: how independent contractors who aren't necessarily on the low wage

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Speaker 1: worker into the spectrum feel in this uncertain time, and

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Speaker 1: how individuals might be starting to address this issue, but

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Speaker 1: not just as individuals. Ned. We're making a whole episode

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Speaker 1: because of you, buddy. Thanks. We often hear about gig

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Speaker 1: workers and independent contractors, being people who drive for a

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Speaker 1: delivery company or a rides share service, but there are

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Speaker 1: a wide range of people who get classified as independent contractors.

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Speaker 1: Some are self employed and prosperous, some make a decent

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Speaker 1: middle class living, and of course others are low wage

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Speaker 1: workers who are having a hard time just making ends meet.

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Speaker 1: I'm somebody who's moved between being employed and self employed

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Speaker 1: fluidly over the past many years. I've been fun employed,

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Speaker 1: I've been self employed in all kinds of labels, and

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Speaker 1: I can relate to this feeling of going solo and

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Speaker 1: feeling like there is no labor law for me, that

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Speaker 1: it doesn't apply, that I don't really have protections, and

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Speaker 1: if I want to raise a flag with the client,

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Speaker 1: I don't have the leg to stand on or the

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Speaker 1: lawyer to stand on instead of I was in New

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Speaker 1: York City for years, and I had heard about the

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Speaker 1: Freelancers Union, Thank you so much, subway ads, and it's

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Speaker 1: initiative to fight for state and federal rights for freelancers.

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Speaker 1: The Freelancers Union estimates that nearly fifty six million people

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Speaker 1: and one trillion dollars are added to the economy every

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Speaker 1: year by freelancers. It's a part of the workforce that

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Speaker 1: needs attention and more collective actions. So in this bonus episode,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna speak with someone who basically only knows the

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Speaker 1: self employed life as a veteran creative freelance photographer in

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and someone who's created a community a round

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Speaker 1: creative freelancers to help them find camaraderie and support in

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Speaker 1: a field that's usually pretty isolating as a self employed worker.

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Speaker 1: He's thinking about the civic power and voice this industry

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Speaker 1: could have if it were more organized, especially in this

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Speaker 1: age of coronavirus, when we see other independent groups starting

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Speaker 1: to come together, like the Independent Restaurant Association. Matthew Young

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Speaker 1: is an advertising photographer who has shot award winning campaigns

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Speaker 1: from major brands around the world. He's also the founder

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Speaker 1: of Art of Freelance, an online community for creative freelancers,

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Speaker 1: and hot Shot Muffler, a production studio in Highland Park,

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Matthew, Welcome to the show. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for having me here. So, Matthew, you're here with

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Speaker 1: us because you're an interesting person to speak with on

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Speaker 1: this topic. You have lived the self employed life of

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Speaker 1: a creative freelancer, but you've also essentially become a small

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Speaker 1: business owner yourself, employing one to five employees at an't

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Speaker 1: given time over the past few years, and hiring people

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Speaker 1: as you do your own photo shoots as you direct.

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Speaker 1: So you're navigating this topic as an employer and as

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Speaker 1: a contractor who works with big brands like Samsung or Amex.

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Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about your journey

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Speaker 1: starting out as a self employed photographer some fifteen years

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Speaker 1: ago and how you ended up becoming a creative small

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Speaker 1: business owner. Yeah, it's a big question. Um. I mean

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Speaker 1: even before I was a photographer, you know, as an

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Speaker 1: independent contractor, I was a photo assistant. That's how I

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Speaker 1: started my career and started earning a living and getting

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Speaker 1: the experience, you know. So I would go and work

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Speaker 1: for other photographers and get paid hundred and fifty two

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Speaker 1: hundred bucks. You know, they'd write you a check most

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Speaker 1: of the time. Sometimes you get paid the day of,

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you get paid a month later. Sometimes to be

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Speaker 1: chasing them down for six months trying to get paid.

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Speaker 1: You know. I started doing smaller photo shoots and getting

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Speaker 1: paid that way, and my career's you know grown over

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Speaker 1: the last fifteen years, signing with agents, hiring full time employees,

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Speaker 1: and growing at one point to a team of eight.

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Speaker 1: I think it was between sort of the full time

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Speaker 1: and the part time people UM that we're working in

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Speaker 1: the studio with me UM and then on any given shoot,

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Speaker 1: you know, like you said, we could have you know,

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Speaker 1: twentyed a hundred people that were employing just for that shoot,

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Speaker 1: whether it's a day or a week, or or ten

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Speaker 1: days or something like that. To the point of I

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Speaker 1: think this conversation, it's been a really interesting journey. I've

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Speaker 1: gone from you know, not having any business entity and

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Speaker 1: just taking personal checks to my name, to becoming you know,

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Speaker 1: doing a d b A, to becoming an LLC to

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Speaker 1: becoming an escorp UM and gone through lots of different

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Speaker 1: sort of structures, business formations to find where I am.

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Speaker 1: And to your point, yeah, I'm both an independent contractor.

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Speaker 1: I get paid on a ten ninety nine, and but

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Speaker 1: then I'm also an employer. I pay myself on a

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Speaker 1: W two, I pay my full time employees on W

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Speaker 1: two's and I also pay you know, lots of what

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Speaker 1: really are independent contractors, people that I hire for one day,

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Speaker 1: but I have to classify them as employees because of

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Speaker 1: California's labor laws as a B five law that happened

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Speaker 1: last year. We're gonna come back to a B five.

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Speaker 1: You rattled off a series of three to five letter words,

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Speaker 1: D B, A, LLC as corps. Did you go to

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Speaker 1: school for that? Did you just google it? Like? How

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Speaker 1: did you know to go from taking personal checks in

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Speaker 1: your name to creating business entities so that you could

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Speaker 1: navigate more smoothly the business that you're in now. And

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Speaker 1: it's such a good question because I know zero photographers

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Speaker 1: or create a freelancers in general that got into the

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Speaker 1: field that they're in because they wanted to figure out

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Speaker 1: how to incorporate, or they wanted to figure out, you know,

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Speaker 1: their tax abilities. They want you know, it's it's not

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Speaker 1: the reason why I became a photographer. I loved holding

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Speaker 1: a camera and making pictures and the immediacy of that

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Speaker 1: kind of creativity. Um, but you know, as you keep

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Speaker 1: going and you you start to realize that you need

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Speaker 1: to also balance that creativity with the business thinking. You know,

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Speaker 1: the left brain and the right brain. The thing that

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Speaker 1: you know got me to make the transition was every

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Speaker 1: time I screwed it up, you know, every time that

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Speaker 1: I had a tax bill that I was how am

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Speaker 1: I going to pay that? Or every time that I

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Speaker 1: got some letter from the state because I wasn't doing

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Speaker 1: something right. Um, you know, forced me to make that

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Speaker 1: next step and research the next thing. And you know, honestly,

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Speaker 1: a c p A a good c p A. It

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Speaker 1: was a superman savior for me as a creative. It

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Speaker 1: took so much burden off of me as a creative

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Speaker 1: and pushed it onto someone else. I think that's something

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Speaker 1: that we get wrong as creatives a lot as we

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Speaker 1: think because we are solo preneurss or we're you know,

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Speaker 1: we're alone, we're independent contractors. We can't have support from

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Speaker 1: other people. But you know, I didn't want to learn

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Speaker 1: every in and out of the tax code. One day

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Speaker 1: rate paid for a year of my c p A.

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Speaker 1: And aren't I better off doing the thing that I'm

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Speaker 1: good at, taking photos and doing my job ver suspending

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Speaker 1: all this time trying to learn turbo tax and what

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Speaker 1: qualifies as an exemption this year versus last year. So

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Speaker 1: I think that we as creative as also we get

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Speaker 1: scared to take that next step because it is scary

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Speaker 1: and there's stuff that we don't know um and so

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Speaker 1: we get scared to hire a part time assistant or

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Speaker 1: studio manager. We get scared to work with the CPA

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Speaker 1: instead of doing the taxes ourselves. But I do think

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Speaker 1: that if we want to grow our creative careers into

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Speaker 1: successful and sustainable busy noess is, we have to take

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Speaker 1: that leap, and we have to make some of those investments.

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Speaker 1: And unfortunately, or fortunately that's part of being a successful

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Speaker 1: creative just allowed to do what they love to do

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Speaker 1: day in and day out and make a living of it.

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Speaker 1: But those were not my favorite times of being a creative.

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Speaker 1: Was the deep dives into you know, employment law by

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Speaker 1: any means, and they felt like this necessary evil something

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Speaker 1: you had to do to get to go do the

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Speaker 1: creative part. This doing of the creative part is something

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Speaker 1: you've invested a lot into with the Art of Freelance program,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of the other side as my understanding of

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Speaker 1: your professional life. What need were you trying to meet

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Speaker 1: in creating this course and community called Art of Freelance? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, being a creative freelancer. I wouldn't trade it

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Speaker 1: for anything. It's in the most amazing career path I

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Speaker 1: could have imagined. It's given me just immense amounts of freedom, experience, venture,

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Speaker 1: meeting interesting people. But it's also hard. You know, you

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Speaker 1: are ostensibly alone in your creative pursuit. There's very little

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Speaker 1: accountability or feedback or community that you would get if

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Speaker 1: you were an employee. You know, we don't have a

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Speaker 1: water cooler, and sometimes even the sort of digital water cooler.

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Speaker 1: The social media sphere feels pretty isolating, just because it's

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Speaker 1: very competitive and people do such a great job of

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Speaker 1: projecting their perfect, finished lives, not the work in progress,

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Speaker 1: messy business that we all really are. So Art of

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Speaker 1: Freelance started, as you know, trying to sort of fill

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Speaker 1: the need that I had felt for a long time

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Speaker 1: as a creative freelancer. The workshop is set up to

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Speaker 1: give you some goal setting, some accountability, some community, some feedback,

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Speaker 1: and some deadlines for the kinds of personal projects, the

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Speaker 1: important projects, the ones that you aren't being hired to do,

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Speaker 1: but the ones that you know you want to do

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Speaker 1: because they're your creativity, your soul work, the kind of

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Speaker 1: work you want to get hired to do in the future.

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Speaker 1: So we created the program to kind of fill those needs.

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Speaker 1: I want to kind of bring these topics together a bit,

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Speaker 1: because you've described through the art of freelance work a

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Speaker 1: bunch of creative freelancers who can be pretty alone in

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Speaker 1: terms of a lack of a water cool or a

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Speaker 1: lack of accountability, a lack of feedback. You described in

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Speaker 1: your own business structure. That's not the fun part and

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Speaker 1: you have to figure out a lot of this on

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Speaker 1: your own. So and it's it's a big tangle web

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Speaker 1: when you think about freelance and the gig economy, and

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Speaker 1: you know all the different words we use to describe it,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's interesting that we sort of

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Speaker 1: have the same job classification for somebody who is driving

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Speaker 1: for Uber or delivering for door Dash as a musician

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Speaker 1: that does gigs and in a stadium that is also

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Speaker 1: a designer that works from home, and they have very

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Speaker 1: different lives and very different ways of making their livelihoods.

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Speaker 1: But we sort of all get mushed into a job classification.

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Speaker 1: But you know, for a lot of freelancers that even

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Speaker 1: you know, very successful ones to ones that are you know,

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Speaker 1: just starting out or struggling or wherever they are in

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Speaker 1: the career trajectory, the work can be inconsistent. They have

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Speaker 1: multiple clients. You know, one job leads to the next job,

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Speaker 1: but you don't always know where your work is going

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Speaker 1: to come from six months, three months, one month down

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Speaker 1: the road. And for a lot of us, our job

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Speaker 1: is done out in the world. You know, we were

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Speaker 1: not we're not considered essential workers because making music or

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Speaker 1: photographs or advertisements or whatever it is we do, obviously

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Speaker 1: is not putting the food on people's tables the same

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Speaker 1: way farming and groceries, store workers and the first line

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Speaker 1: responders in the hospitals. Like, it's not the essential work,

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Speaker 1: but it is done in person with other people. So um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: the work went away. Um it became an entirely new

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Speaker 1: world instantly, and so um quickly we started trying to

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Speaker 1: spend our time. And you know, we consider ourselves creative

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Speaker 1: problem solvers when I'm doing that for a client for

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Speaker 1: a photo shoot. So just sort of applied those skills

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Speaker 1: to what is going to be available to create a freelancers.

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Speaker 1: Are we being included in the CARES Act? Do we

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Speaker 1: need to advocate for that to happen? Um? What kind

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Speaker 1: of petitions do we need to sign? Once it was

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Speaker 1: clear that there was going to be some unemployment insurance

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Speaker 1: available for ten night and nine employees, UM, how do

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Speaker 1: you access that? It got really complicated with what they

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Speaker 1: called mixed income, which was people that were paid on

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Speaker 1: W two's and ten ninety nine's. When the p p

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Speaker 1: P program came out, it was you know, is that

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Speaker 1: available to independent contractors? People that are paid on ten

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Speaker 1: ninty nines. So we started setting up webinars, these zoom

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Speaker 1: calls and just asking smart people the questions and then

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Speaker 1: making the information public that they gave us, and writing

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Speaker 1: blog posts and sort of how to guides and just

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Speaker 1: sort of sharing the information that we could find as

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Speaker 1: best we could. When you layer a pandemic on top

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Speaker 1: of that, it feels like it adds even more stress

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Speaker 1: to a pursuit, to a living, to an occupation that's

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Speaker 1: already difficult and isolating and improvising. D I Y, how

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Speaker 1: have you seen this creative freelance community be affected by UM?

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Speaker 1: And then how have you responded to this new, more tense,

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Speaker 1: more isolating circumstances. When we were allowed to do our

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Speaker 1: work again, it was going to be with other people

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Speaker 1: and put us in that sort of how risk and

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Speaker 1: have that conundrum of do I go back to work

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Speaker 1: and risk my health or do I stay at home

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Speaker 1: and face the economic consequences. But then also there was

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Speaker 1: this big lack of a safety net and all this confusion.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's it's fine when everything's kind of humming

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Speaker 1: along and you don't really ask the questions. But this

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Speaker 1: pandemic really did reveal the cavities that existed and and

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Speaker 1: those safety nets, and creative freelancers I think really were

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Speaker 1: affected by it. So what did you all do about that?

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Speaker 1: What did you do with that state of confusion, with

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Speaker 1: that isolation, with that frustration. Did you figure it out?

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Speaker 1: Did you come together? Did you rally? Um? I have

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Speaker 1: seen more camaraderie in the creative freelance community during this

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Speaker 1: pandemic in the past six months, and I've seen in

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Speaker 1: my whole career. I will say, um, it does seem

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Speaker 1: like people have come together. But no, sir, I don't

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Speaker 1: think it's been figured out. I mean, I'm sure you

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Speaker 1: could talk to people that still never got the unemployment

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Speaker 1: money that they were Do you know now that the

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Speaker 1: unemployment extra assistance is run out, they might be living

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Speaker 1: on a hundred and fifty bucks a week from the

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Speaker 1: unemployment office, still not allowed to go back to work

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Speaker 1: and do what they did beforehand. So there's still a

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Speaker 1: lot of issues that exist. But you know, it's a

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Speaker 1: really competitive industry. You know, we're all sort of competing

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Speaker 1: against each other. And I guess that's part of the problem.

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Speaker 1: Right when you don't have any kind of collective organization,

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Speaker 1: it's really easy for companies to pit us against each other.

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Speaker 1: Information is held really tight to the chest. People don't

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Speaker 1: share things like rates and contract and negotiations, and so

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Speaker 1: we started from a real disadvantage, it feels like. So

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Speaker 1: even though yes, there has been more camaraderie in the

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Speaker 1: past six months, it still doesn't feel like a problem

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Speaker 1: that's been solved. I'm ready to come back to a

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Speaker 1: B five now buckling in the in the state of California,

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Speaker 1: simbly Bill five. We've got a new set of classifications

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Speaker 1: about what type of worker is full time versus independent contractor,

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Speaker 1: and it's more stringent now, and the fines are higher

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Speaker 1: for misclassification, and so there seems to be this trade

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Speaker 1: off of sort of freedom for the worker and the

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Speaker 1: independent status, but protection for the full timer who gets reclassified.

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Speaker 1: What has been your experience of this rule, this law

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Speaker 1: on you and on creative freelancers that you're in touch with. Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I understand. I think where they were coming

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Speaker 1: from and trying to do this provide a little bit

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Speaker 1: more of the employer protections to create a freelancers, to

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Speaker 1: gig workers, to all freelancers. Um. You know, it's tricky

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Speaker 1: because we get jumbled. You know, Spielberg and door Dash

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Speaker 1: are like sort of jumbled into the same world. And

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Speaker 1: so I think that it was trying to be one

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Speaker 1: big solution for a complicated problem. I think there was

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Speaker 1: good intentions with it, but it made things only more

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Speaker 1: expensive and confusing for you know, a graphic designer trying

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Speaker 1: to make a living. You know, for me, when I

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Speaker 1: if I hire a photo assistant to come and help

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Speaker 1: me with lighting for one day, I not have to

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Speaker 1: classify them as an employee, even though obviously they're an

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Speaker 1: independent contractor. They're showing up for one day doing one job.

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Speaker 1: They work for a hundred photographers in a year, but

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Speaker 1: the way this new law is set up, they need

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Speaker 1: to be classified as employee. That's easy for me. I

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Speaker 1: pay people through a payroll company. We try to write

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Speaker 1: off the costs of hiring people as employees. To the

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Speaker 1: clients when we're doing jobs, you know, we factor that

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Speaker 1: into our estimates. But it's not as easy for everybody,

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Speaker 1: you know. I hear from musicians that are just trying

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Speaker 1: to play a gig at the local venue, and in

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Speaker 1: order to pay their drummer a hundred dollars for the night,

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Speaker 1: they gotta go get set up with a payroll company

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Speaker 1: and pay them through a payroll company and have tax withheld.

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Speaker 1: And you can't just give your drum or a hunter

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Speaker 1: Bucks anymore. But on the flip side, you know, when

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Speaker 1: you were just getting paid on ten ninety nine's and

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Speaker 1: before we were classifying people as employees, you know, it

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Speaker 1: left people really exposed. No one was forcing you to

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Speaker 1: be smart about withholding your taxes throughout the years so

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Speaker 1: you didn't have some big tax bill do at the

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Speaker 1: end of the year that you couldn't afford. Nobody was

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Speaker 1: encouraging you to pay into the unemployment system so that

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Speaker 1: if something like a global pandemic happened, there actually was

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Speaker 1: a safety net. So there needs to be a third way,

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Speaker 1: a middle ground, some sort of different classification that's neither

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Speaker 1: an independent contractor with all of the insecurities that come

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Speaker 1: with that, but not an employee status, because that makes

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Speaker 1: it so difficult for somebody to build their business, and

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Speaker 1: having to classify people's employees also makes it harder to

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Speaker 1: naturally grow your business. You know, I feel like my

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Speaker 1: business has really naturally grown on a nice, steady curve

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Speaker 1: over the past fifteen years. And it's not like you

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Speaker 1: turn on a switch and you know, one day you're

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Speaker 1: a creative freelancer getting pay checks under the table, and

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Speaker 1: the next day you're a escort with payroll company able

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Speaker 1: to pay people that way. It's it's a more gradual

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Speaker 1: process and there's not really a good, you know, middle ground.

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Speaker 1: And we're seeing this with the gig workers too, and

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Speaker 1: you know AB twenty two, a bill that's going to

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Speaker 1: be on the ballot in November in California where you know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of Uber drivers don't want to work nine

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Speaker 1: to five for Uber and drive forty hours a week.

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Speaker 1: They want the freedom and flexibility to be able to

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Speaker 1: make up their own hours. But right now we're in

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Speaker 1: this binary position where either they're an independent contractor when

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Speaker 1: all the insecurities to come with that and they can

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Speaker 1: make up their own hours, or they're a full time

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Speaker 1: employee and they have to work forty hours a week,

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Speaker 1: nine to five, and Uber makes their schedule, like you know,

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Speaker 1: it just doesn't seem like those are the only two

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Speaker 1: options we should have. I wanted you to explore some

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Speaker 1: of what those other options might look like. You've done

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Speaker 1: such a good job of painting this binary. And if

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Speaker 1: we're learning anything in this world, as that most things

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Speaker 1: are on a spectrum. So find a different position on

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Speaker 1: that spectrum that you think makes sense to get the combination,

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Speaker 1: to get the flexibility and the relative independence of this

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Speaker 1: contractor status, but not lose the safety net that so

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Speaker 1: many people didn't have access to, not because they didn't

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Speaker 1: want to stage the netbook they were forced into a binary.

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Speaker 1: What would it look like to do it differently, you know,

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Speaker 1: creative freelancers, sometimes it gets it feels like you get

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Speaker 1: thrown in the deep bend and you just kind of

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Speaker 1: sink or swim. And I don't think that that's a

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Speaker 1: great way either. I do think that some more structure

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Speaker 1: to how you build and grow a business would be

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Speaker 1: helpful for creatives. You know, sometimes when speaking to young

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Speaker 1: photographers or young creatives, I even though what I want

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Speaker 1: to say is find your voice and have your vision

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Speaker 1: and know your goals and make art and you know,

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Speaker 1: get unique and make it weird and make it good.

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Speaker 1: I also have to say, but don't forget to get

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Speaker 1: insurance and pay people appropriately, and get a bookkeeper and

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Speaker 1: start doing spreadsheets and you know. Again, it is that

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Speaker 1: balance of organization and creativity that I think makes for

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Speaker 1: the most successful creative freelancers. And I think that withholding

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Speaker 1: your taxes as you go is a good thing. You know,

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Speaker 1: when I was younger, I used to brag like, Oh,

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Speaker 1: I don't have to really pay any taxes because I

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Speaker 1: get paid on ten and nine and I write everything

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Speaker 1: off and at the end of the year, I only

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Speaker 1: owe you know, five grand. But then that number turned

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Speaker 1: into twenty grand, and then it turned into fifty grand,

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Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: have fifty grand to pay the taxes right now. So,

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Speaker 1: like estimating your taxes is important, paying into a safety

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Speaker 1: net is important for when situations like this happened, or

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Speaker 1: God forbid you break your leg or fall off the

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Speaker 1: ladder or something else. Workers comp is important. You know

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Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that we do. The number

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Speaker 1: of times I found myself standing on top of a

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Speaker 1: twelve foot ladder, hanging out of a moving vehicle with

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Speaker 1: a camera, you know, jumping off a boat into the

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Speaker 1: Mediterranean to like get the shot, you put yourself into

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Speaker 1: some risky positions sometimes, And like all of that is

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Speaker 1: to say that somewhere between full time employment and fully

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Speaker 1: independent there does seem to be like there could be

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Speaker 1: a happy medium that we could investigate and sort of

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Speaker 1: start creating as a as a community. Um what that

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Speaker 1: would look like? And it's very tense time for a

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Speaker 1: group of workers who were pretty isolated through the art freelance,

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Speaker 1: through your webinars, through information sharing which wasn't common, and

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Speaker 1: still the unresolved tension of this forced binary of freedom

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Speaker 1: versus security of independent contractor versus full time employee. Do

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Speaker 1: you see any path forward, any leverage points that can

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Speaker 1: be exploited when independent creative freelancers come together to shift

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Speaker 1: this system more in favor of finding that healthier balance

432
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 1: without so much pain. I really hope. So, I mean,

433
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 1: what's the alternative alternative? Is the race to the bottom

434
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:06,880
Speaker 1: where we just become sort of commodities. We're all Amazon basics,

435
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: everyone's just racing to the cheapest price. And you see

436
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: that you know, I don't want to rag on upwork

437
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 1: because you know, I think that they have done some

438
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,200
Speaker 1: interesting work to try to support the creative freelance world.

439
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 1: But just the basic model of what they do is

440
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: sort of sort by price, and you can go find

441
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: the cheapest option very easily, and it's pushed this race

442
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: to the bottom mentality where you have to be one

443
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 1: dollar an hour cheaper than your competitor in order to

444
00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: get listed on top of the search results. When people

445
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:44,439
Speaker 1: go and look, and if that's all we are and

446
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: we're always going one dollar underneath each other, it's a

447
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:53,880
Speaker 1: bleak future for these creative fields that provide so much joy.

448
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: And at its best, creative freelancers are the ones making

449
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: all the art and music and culture and film and

450
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: photos and you know, all the fashion, the stuff that

451
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:08,680
Speaker 1: we get so inspired by. But if we just kind

452
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:13,919
Speaker 1: of push all that down and there's not that kind

453
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: of community, camaraderie, unionization, I don't know what you call it.

454
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: It's a bleak thing. But we are a huge block

455
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: the status you mentioned at the top of this. You know,

456
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: fifty six million people considering themselves independent, you know, not

457
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: in that full time employment, and that number growing significantly.

458
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 1: I think it's a big group of people, it's an

459
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: important group of people, and there is a lot of

460
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: power if people could come together, share that information, support

461
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,879
Speaker 1: each other, and tried to create fair and equitable working

462
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 1: conditions for everyone trying to to do that kind of work.

463
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:52,200
Speaker 1: And here you said you didn't have any answers. You

464
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,480
Speaker 1: hear yourself. That was a brave heart speech. So we

465
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 1: have thought in this show the way we set it

466
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 1: up where we say the word citizen is a verb

467
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:05,399
Speaker 1: or a practice. If you interpret the word citizen in

468
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: that way, what does it mean to citizen to you?

469
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: So I love that question, and I love the framing

470
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: for this podcast about reimagining you know, citizen as a verb.

471
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: And you know, I've listened to some of your episodes

472
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: and so that thought has struck me before, and I

473
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: think I've had a different answer at different times. It's

474
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 1: inspired different thoughts. Right now, what's coming front for me

475
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 1: is it's scary to try to have a voice. It

476
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: feels like like I was scared to talk to you

477
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: today about these subjects because it feels easy to get

478
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: it wrong. It feels scary to try to bring people

479
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: together because it feels like you might do it wrong,

480
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 1: or someone might yell at you, or something like that.

481
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:56,880
Speaker 1: But what I have seen is that the more we're

482
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: able to fight that resistance, and the more as individuals

483
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: we're willing to stand up and speak to try to

484
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 1: bring people together, to join with others, to try to

485
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:10,439
Speaker 1: be those kind of magnetic forces in the world, the

486
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: better things become. And so for me right now, the

487
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: idea of to citizen as a verb means getting over

488
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: that fear and resistance and being willing to have uncomfortable conversations,

489
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: to meet new people, to hear new ideas, like for example,

490
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 1: we've been phone banking recently. It's super scary. You just

491
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: think you're gonna get yelled at all the time. But

492
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: until you start getting over that fear. When you do

493
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: start getting over that fear, you discover it's not nearly

494
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 1: as scary as you thought it was, and you can

495
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: actually have an impact, just no matter who you are,

496
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: how small you think, your voices, where you are in

497
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: your career, and just not waiting until you get there,

498
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: because there is no there. It's just this journey and

499
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: be willing to share along the path. I got one

500
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: more is my last one. Fifty six million people fall

501
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: under this category. This the ten of America. If they

502
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: came together. Based on your experience, what's on the shopping

503
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 1: list of different ways we should be interacting with our society,

504
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 1: with our government, and particularly with our safety netty million people,

505
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: What do you think they could get done? Uh? I

506
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: mean it's a leading question because I think the answer

507
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 1: is a lot, right, Like, we could we could build

508
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: a better world if we were to come together. And

509
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 1: you're not just talking about fifty six million people, but

510
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: you're talking about some of the most creative and inspiring

511
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: and you know, the best artists and communicators and singers

512
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: and actors. I mean, this is also a really compelling

513
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 1: group of people. I think that on this spectrum of

514
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: the rugged individualism of the United States, you know, manifest destiny,

515
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,719
Speaker 1: which I think created freely, answers kind of get attracted

516
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: to that rugged individualism, you know, versus the sort of

517
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: more social collective kind of political systems. It seems like

518
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: creative freelancers would be happyist and most successful, and most

519
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: fulfilled and most inspired somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

520
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen the folly of the rugged individualism

521
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: in our national response to COVID in my opinion, and

522
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 1: you see other countries that have some more collective spirits

523
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: do a lot better, both from a health perspective and

524
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: on the economic perspective. And I just think that whether

525
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 1: you're talking about business structures, where you're talking about the

526
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: tax code, whether you're talking about healthcare, whether you're talking

527
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: about worker protections, bathroom breaks, you know, whether you're talking

528
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: about rates, whether you're talking about contract negotiations, whether you're

529
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: talking about any of these things that are really you know,

530
00:30:55,360 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: sticky for creative freelancers, that kind of collective spirit, information sharing,

531
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: camaraderie could do a lot of good for people to

532
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: come together and carve that out well. Thank you for

533
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: being willing to share with us along your path, Matthew.

534
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: I think in some ways you underestimated the impact you've had.

535
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: We are excited to have spoken with you, to not

536
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,479
Speaker 1: just hear your answers, but your questions which help us

537
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 1: all illuminate this very frustrating off in dark time. So

538
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time, I appreciate your openness, appreciate your

539
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 1: citizen ng Thank you, ma'am, thanks for doing everything that

540
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: you're doing. Also a big gratitude to your team that's

541
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,719
Speaker 1: put an assault together, and yeah, I love hearing your

542
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: voice out there. Man. There were a few ideas that

543
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: I'm still thinking about after that conversation with Matthew Young.

544
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: One is that you have an entire industry of creative

545
00:31:55,360 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: freelancers that's premised on pitting one freelancer a it's the

546
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: other freelancer, and I would know. I've been a creative

547
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: freelancer myself, and you're discouraged from sharing pricing information or

548
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: anything else that might lead you to not get the job.

549
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 1: The other idea that stands out to me is this

550
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: binary choice, this false binary choice we've been given, especially

551
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: in the United States, that you can either have creativity

552
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: and flexibility and independence in your work or you can

553
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 1: have rights. And that is a false dichotomy that I

554
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: hope we work hard to escape. Uh. And on the

555
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: matter of people being pitted against one another, I think

556
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:41,959
Speaker 1: it's really beautiful to see folks viewing themselves more as

557
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: a collective, especially in such a fragmented industry. That is

558
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: using power, that is understanding power, that is people power.

559
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 1: So let us all continue to be creative in the

560
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: question of what does work mean and who does work

561
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 1: actually work for? In every episode we've promised to give

562
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: you things you can do to citizen better. In this

563
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: bonus episode, we're doubling down on everything we said in

564
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 1: episode six, making work work for everyone, because it's the

565
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 1: same topic. If there's more you want to say to us,

566
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: share with us or exchange with Matthew, hit us up

567
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: at our email, comments at how to Citizen dot com.

568
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: As always, if you are digging this show, let the

569
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 1: platforms know with a positive rating and a review. And

570
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,240
Speaker 1: if you want to stay in touch and get updates

571
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: directly from me, I've got something special for you. Text

572
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 1: me too, oh to eight nine four eight eight four

573
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: or four, Put the words citizen in the text, and

574
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:47,960
Speaker 1: you'll get alerted to future tapings. You'll get to chat

575
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 1: back and forth with me, and you'll have a chance

576
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 1: to find out more about the how to Citizen universe

577
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: and about my own world. How to Citizen with barrettun

578
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:59,959
Speaker 1: Day is a production of I Heart Radio Podcasts. Executive

579
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: produced by Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart and barretton

580
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: Day Thursty, Produced by Joe L. Smith, Edited by Justin Smith.

581
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: Powered by You