4 ms·

I'm not sure why contractors or freelancers need a real "union". It kind of runs counter to the whole point of being an independent worker. Part of being a free

I'm not sure why contractors or freelancers need a real "union". It kind of runs counter to the whole point of being an independent worker. Part of being a freelancer or contractor is that you already have all the power and you get to set the terms. If you don't like it, you walk away and go somewhere else. Things like the Freelancer's Union are really about getting group benefits.

smacktoward 13y ago
The problem is that you have an entire industry set up to push people into contracting who really should be employees. In other words, there are lots of "independent contractors" out there who have one client they work on full-time, which really does not fit under any reasonable definition of an independent businessperson. The companies just prefer to have these people defined as freelancers so they don't have to pay for the types of benefits (health insurance, retirement, etc.) that employees get, and to make them more easily disposable. Part of being a freelancer or contractor is that you already have all the power This is a joke, right? How much power does a single independent contractor have by themselves over (say) Electronic Arts? Especially when they have no other clients to fall back on should EA tell them to go pound sand?
- to3m 13y ago
  Well, if you have only one client, and no money, you do indeed have no power. This is why you try not to get into that situation...
- pandaman 13y ago
  QA does not have a lot to do during most of the production so they should not be employees. If your job is to play the game what are you going to do while there is no game to play?
  - stirno 13y ago
    There is a lot more to QA than just execution. On any normal team I'd expect them to spend considerable time creating a test plan and start figuring out the ways to test specific things, well before the game is in a playable state.
    - pandaman 13y ago
      Do you expect the planning to take more hours than actual testing? In a typical title I have seen there are about 20-50 contract testers working for few months. With 2 year development cycle they need to spend 5-10 times more time on planning to justify employing them full time. For reference the entire game art and tech planning takes about 100 times less resources (dozen people over 1-4 months).
walshemj 13y ago
Yeh you really need to talk about organizing the major studios first. Though BECTU in the UK has success representing freelancers in the TV industry albeit from having recognition in the major players BBC/ITN etc. Ill point this post out to one of the people I know in BECTU not sure if anyone has got the Games industry on its Organizing list

smacktoward 13y ago

The problem is that you have an entire industry set up to push people into contracting who really should be employees. In other words, there are lots of "independent contractors" out there who have one client they work on full-time, which really does not fit under any reasonable definition of an independent businessperson. The companies just prefer to have these people defined as freelancers so they don't have to pay for the types of benefits (health insurance, retirement, etc.) that employees get, and to make them more easily disposable. Part of being a freelancer or contractor is that you already have all the power This is a joke, right? How much power does a single independent contractor have by themselves over (say) Electronic Arts? Especially when they have no other clients to fall back on should EA tell them to go pound sand?

to3m 13y ago
Well, if you have only one client, and no money, you do indeed have no power. This is why you try not to get into that situation...
pandaman 13y ago
QA does not have a lot to do during most of the production so they should not be employees. If your job is to play the game what are you going to do while there is no game to play?
- stirno 13y ago
  There is a lot more to QA than just execution. On any normal team I'd expect them to spend considerable time creating a test plan and start figuring out the ways to test specific things, well before the game is in a playable state.
  - pandaman 13y ago
    Do you expect the planning to take more hours than actual testing? In a typical title I have seen there are about 20-50 contract testers working for few months. With 2 year development cycle they need to spend 5-10 times more time on planning to justify employing them full time. For reference the entire game art and tech planning takes about 100 times less resources (dozen people over 1-4 months).

walshemj 13y ago

Yeh you really need to talk about organizing the major studios first. Though BECTU in the UK has success representing freelancers in the TV industry albeit from having recognition in the major players BBC/ITN etc. Ill point this post out to one of the people I know in BECTU not sure if anyone has got the Games industry on its Organizing list