If you were paying attention to the strike at Nine newspapers (formerly Fairfax) this week you might have noticed lots of freelancers joined staff at the picket lines. This action has seen unprecedented levels of solidarity between the two, with staff holding a demand for a freelance agreement in their EBA and almost two hundred freelancers pledging not to cross the picket line (not to pitch or file stories). This has turned out to be a winning strategy and Nine have now agreed, alongside a pay rise for staff and important AI provisions, to negotiate a collective agreement with freelancers.

If you have been paying attention to me at all over the last two decades you will know I am very keen on labour rights in the arts/media and in particular the right of freelancers to unionise. So this is a VERY cool outcome. It reflects lots of work – many years of work, from many freelance comrades and union organisers. We’re all pretty stoked, and I’m really proud of us. Our wins at Overland and Crikey have built the strength we needed to take on this much bigger fish, and now I reckon we’re unstoppable. Lots more to do, including the actual negotiations at Nine, and parallel campaigns coming up at a few other big media companies (including the Guardian very soon), but it’s a moment to celebrate. A massive shift and one I think will have a gravitational effect on the rest of the media here. Look what we can do when we work together in solidarity! Let no-one compare us to a herd of cats ever again.

While we’re on the subject, it’s about time for my annual-ish audit of my own freelance work. I made a neat pie chart this time:

As you can see I make this writing life work with a “balance” (lol) of many different kinds of labour. It looks like a fun rainbow but this represents 32 individual jobs and a lot of code-switching and multitasking. I am getting worse at multitasking as I get older and would like to be able to afford to do a bit less of it.

I categorically deny any income from “asses.” It refers to assessments, like manuscript assessments, peer assessing for grants, and that sort of thing. No asses were harmed.

I did have the great help of an Arts SA project grant which paid me a part-time “wage” for six months so I could finish my book. That’s how I expressed my request in the budget. I finished the book, as I mentioned in my last post. More on that in a moment.

I did a bit more teaching this past year, and a lot less writing. This actually reflects a trend in data that MEAA has collected from freelancers. Per-word rates haven’t gone up anywhere near the rate of inflation. In some cases (like at Nine) they haven’t gone up in twenty years! It has become a lot harder to make a living from writing, and many of us are turning to writing-adjacent gigs like teaching.

Overall I felt very successful and financially sound, until I checked and found that my income for the year was still less than the minimum wage. So I guess I will keep yelling #paythewriters for a few more years. And even if I’m doing okay as an individual, I still think it’s a lot harder than it should be to be any kind of artist in this country, and I’m determined to do my bit in changing that, while I can still multitask.

Finally, a little more news on the book. Contracts are signed, edits are scheduled and editors met, and we have a tentative publication date of June 2025 for SALVAGE – I guess it’s time to make a new page-in-waiting…