Organizer offers media freelancers path to fairness, respect

Datejie Green sees herself as a beacon of hope for media freelancers who despair of ever getting a fair deal from the people who contract their services.

She is also breaking new ground for CWA Canada, says Director Martin O’Hanlon. Green will lead the union’s first major effort to organize independent freelancers and improve their lives.

"Freelancers are talented people who, because they don't have any power to negotiate, have been underpaid and taken advantage of for far too long," O'Hanlon says. "We intend to change that."

"By joining CWA Canada, freelancers can band together with a collective voice and demand fairness. They will also have access to a range of union services, including health and dental benefits, which many sorely need."

Green will work out of the Canadian Media Guild (CMG) office in Toronto and concentrate on building its Freelance Branch. Her efforts will focus on independent freelancers (as opposed to those at the CBC who are automatically represented by CWA Canada’s largest Local).

She will develop a strategy to bring to those freelancers an avenue to decent pay and benefits that most are unable to access working alone. The CMG has already reached out to these media workers with general advice and facilitated networking through such inititatives as an alliance with the Canadian Writers Group, Media Tech Commons and TheStoryboard.ca.

“Freelancers need to take themselves seriously as workers and make a commitment to the standards of their craft by properly valuing their labour,” says Green. “They must demand bottom-line respect from their engagers.”

Green will have instant rapport with media workers of all stripes, given her range of experience: Writer in multiple formats; copy editor; web design and content development; audio technician (field and studio); radio journalist; radio and video documentary production; and film post-production.

“It’s increasingly clear that this type of membership will be a major aspect of the union movement in the future as we seek to also represent workers who do not have permanent ongoing jobs,” says Carmel Smyth, CMG’s national president.

“A growing amount of media work is being done independently by freelancers or in workplaces that are too small for a traditional bargaining unit structure. At the same time, we know there is a hunger among freelancers for a voice to push for bargaining leverage and better work conditions and benefits.”

Green is intimately familiar with the travails of being a freelancer, but also has a track record of bringing about change within a union.

While working as a producer and director for such popular CBC Radio One programs as The Current and As It Happens, Green became Director of Human Rights and Equity on the CMG’s National Executive, expanding its advisory committee to include representatives of all equity-seeking groups, multiple Guild branches and each region of the country. Among the committee’s accomplishments was relocation of the CMG to offices that would be accessible to people with disabilities.

Her work with the CBC led to a Canadian Association of Journalists fellowship in 2004, which funded her work in Sudan as a freelance journalist. She parlayed a documentary that analysed media coverage of conflict in Africa into a Masters Degree from York University.

Are you a media freelancer who could use some help getting a fair deal? Contact Datejie Green for a confidential discussion. Send an email message to datejie@cmg.ca or call her at the CMG office: 416-591-5333 extension 239 (or toll-free 1-800-465-4149).