Swindon Music Co-operative: a co-op of 50 self-employed teachers creating security for themselves by working together. Image courtesy of Co-operatives UK.With nearly 5 million people in the UK now self-employed, we need to find new ways to ensure today’s workers have rights and representation. In the US a model is emerging where unions are coming together with co-ops of self-employed workers to give them control over their work.
The gig economy
The 'gig economy' has become ubiquitous. Casual work, temping, zero-hour contracts and diverse forms of self-employment are characteristic of an expanding marketplace of atypical, precarious and increasingly unprotected work.
Under EU regulations temporary and agency staff are entitled as ‘workers’ to sickness and holiday pay, but this is not the case for self-employed freelancers. In the UK today, 4.6 million people are self-employed (15% of the workforce) and they have generated two-thirds of new jobs since 2008.
