FIA’s project work in Europe in the broad area of working conditions for those who are freelance, self-employed, or otherwise “atypical” has continued apace throughout the past year in the framework of our joint project with FIM, UNI MEI and EFJ. Atypical workers remain a large and vital part of the workforce in the sector and are highly flexible and highly skilled. Yet too often they remain vulnerable and inadequately covered by the protections offered to workers by labour law. For trade unions they are a core, but sometimes hard to reach group. This project aims to empower unions to represent them and to build a more resilient sector. It is the fourth in a series of successful projects, aiming to build the capacity of participating unions in organising and representing atypical workers, including self-employed freelancers, bringing them within the scope of collective bargaining and addressing their pay and working conditions.
This project is built on three key strands. The first is a training package that directly works to build the capacity of selected participating unions to organise and engage with atypical workers. The second is a mutual learning strand, which is focused on establishing collective bargaining on behalf of freelance, sometimes self-employed, union members, taking account of the 2022 European Commission Competition Guidelines on Collective Bargaining for Self-employed, which clarify the legality of such bargaining. The third strand focuses on AI, and in particular generative AI, and how it is likely to impact the sector’s workers. A survey and study are the main tools for this work. More details of the work done to date in these three strands, as well as upcoming events and outcomes are set out below.
The project has engaged two proactive and experienced trade union trainers who have embarked on a targeted training programme on union organising. We have identified 8 trainee unions from across the four federations and begun to roll out a targeted training package to them aiming to help them consolidate their structures, analyse their membership situation and plan activities for union growth and organising. In-person training visits are being rolled out at present, with six already complete and two others in the pipeline. These will complemented by further online training and follow-up, as well selected training visits in the final phase of the project.
This project has included three in-depth sessions on the challenging topic of raising standards for self-employed workers in the sector. The first online session in June 2024 took a deep-dive into to the lived experience and lessons learned by unions in the sector who have recently achieved collective bargaining agreements for their self-employed members, analysising all aspects of the approach and outcome and offering time for Q&A. An in-person event in February 2025 combined two peer-learning sessions and took in a range of topics across collective bargaining for self-employed workers and how the competition guidelines of 2022 have impacted the landscape as well as labour market dynamics and abuse of dominance issues. It also examined the question of minimum rates and the various mechanisms emerging to develop and assert them across difference member states of the EU and how this is intersecting with public policy in the wake of the pandemic. It turned its attention also to the question of requalification as a route to better conditions and social protection. Reporting and resources were shared in the wake of the events. A fourth and final peer-learning session will take place online on September 12th 2025 from 10:00 to 12:00 which will revisit collective bargaining progress for self-employed and examine new developments and good practice on minimum standards, including minimum basic income. Registration will be launched in August, but please save the date.
The project has made good progress in the research work regarding AI planned as a key outcome of this project. We have engaged researchers with experience and insight on the topic. They have already conducted a first internal analysis of the main AI applications whose use is rapidly expanding in the sector and the professions impacted. A union survey is in its final phase of development and will be launched at an upcoming online launch event scheduled online on September 18th 2025 at 10:00am (registration for this event will be launched in August, but you can already save the date. An accompanying, limited national level survey to be targeted at members of selected unions is also being developed and is in the pipeline, with work underway to finalise it and identify participating unions (some 2 per sector).
