As many of you know, the way freelancers choose to work, live, and earn money is currently under threat from the European Parliament’s approach to the Platform Work Directive. If the EU Parliament gets its way, freelancers will lose their flexibility and source of income and be forced into employment structures they do not want.
This week Glen Hodgson, Founder & CEO, of Free Trade Europa led a discussion on the issue and discussed what this could mean, and how we can work together to support the platform work by freelancers. Joining him to offer valuable insight was Adam Morehead, Chief Community Officer at Distributed, Agnieszka Porebska, CEO of Talent Alpha, and Peter McPartlin, Co-Founder of The Indie List.
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CHAT TRANSCRIPT
00:05:22 Karina Rehavia: Who was that?
00:05:22 Matt Jensen: I want some waffles
00:05:34 Karina Rehavia: I thought I head Portuguese
00:05:38 Karina Rehavia: *heard
00:06:06 Mark Hannant: Hello all from london
00:06:07 Carin-Isabel Knoop, Harvard Business School: of course i was saying to my colleague how excited i am with you all!!
00:06:14 Carin-Isabel Knoop, Harvard Business School: heehaw
00:06:32 Carin-Isabel Knoop, Harvard Business School: where is the 10-gallon hat? texas is booming and super spirit
00:08:40 Dan’s OtterPilot: Hi, I’m an AI assistant helping Dan Curran take notes for this meeting. Follow along the transcript here: https://otter.ai/u/P5kCfOkS8_CUJtvEPCkkU4XBLc0?utm_source=va_chat_link_1
You’ll also be able to see screenshots of key moments, add highlights, comments, or action items to anything being said, and get an automatic summary after the meeting.
00:20:46 Dan’s OtterPilot: Hi, I’m an AI assistant helping Dan Curran take notes for this meeting. Follow along the transcript here: https://otter.ai/u/P5kCfOkS8_CUJtvEPCkkU4XBLc0?utm_source=va_chat_link_2
You’ll also be able to see screenshots of key moments, add highlights, comments, or action items to anything being said, and get an automatic summary after the meeting.
00:21:00 Carin-Isabel Knoop, Harvard Business School: have to hope off soon actually (to go work in IRL)(eeeeeeeeeeesh who does that on this call? NOT cool) — welcome to our newcomer and see you next week!
00:21:35 Carin-Isabel Knoop, Harvard Business School: actually our very own @David Ehrenthal wrote a great and refreshing piece on the remote work debate (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/work-from-home-debate-david-ehrenthal-professional-coach/)
00:22:02 Open Assembly: Breaking Boundaries: Open Assembly’s Trusted Talent Partner Awards Honor Ferovalo, Uplink, The PR Cavalry: https://open-assembly.com/blog/breaking-boundaries-open-assemblys-trusted-talent-partner-awards-honor-ferovalo-uplink-the-pr-cavalry
00:22:11 Open Assembly: Transform Work: Ilyse Shuster-Frohman, Founder and CEO, Mothership: https://open-assembly.com/podcast/transform-work-ilyse-shuster-frohman-founder-and-ceo-mothership
00:22:19 Open Assembly: John Healy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnwhealy/
00:22:26 Open Assembly: Glen Hodgson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glen-hodgson-36136516/
00:22:46 Adam Morehead: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adroc/
00:23:03 Melisa Liberman: Link to Grow Your Independent Consulting podcast (to share with independent consultants) – https://www.melisaliberman.com/podcast Melisa Liberman – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisa-liberman/
00:25:37 Lorraine Charles, Na’amal: There is a good report on the platform economy by the World Bank https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/ebc4a7e2-85c6-467b-8713-e2d77e954c6c
00:26:00 John Healy: Reacted to “There is a good repo…” with 👍
00:28:44 marcello magalhaes: Reacted to “There is a good repo…” with 👍
00:32:34 Rochelle HAYNES: There is an underlying issue of control among policy makers
00:35:27 Open Assembly: Adam Morehead, Chief Community Officer at Distributed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adroc/
00:36:04 Todd Brous: Isn’t “outcome based work” a bad thing?
00:36:34 Open Assembly: Agnieszka Porebska, CEO of Talent Alpha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnieszkaporebska/
00:38:54 Adam Morehead: Replying to “Isn’t “outcome based…”
I don’t think so as long as the outcome is understood (requirement and payment for delivery)
00:39:06 John Healy: Reacted to “I don’t think so as …” with 👍
00:40:08 Todd Brous: Reacted to “I don’t think so as …” with 🤔
00:41:53 Open Assembly: https://labourinstitute.eu/en/
00:43:30 Todd Brous: Replying to “Isn’t “outcome based…”
What’s to stop the Demand Side of to simply reject the output?
This feels like the potential for “piece work” (pay per piece of output)? Which I’d imagine is a slippery slope for freelancers.
00:47:46 Open Assembly: Sign the petition Glen mentioned: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7103244389312847872/
00:48:44 Todd Brous: Taxes!!! (I wish I could collect taxes!)
00:49:29 Peter McPartlin: Is there a positioning paper that captures the arguments which rebuts the proposed directive and which represents the views of ‘knowledge worker’ platforms?
00:50:07 David Ehrenthal: Well, they do need to pay the bills. Unless, of course, you work in the US Congress.
00:50:20 Adam Morehead: Replying to “Isn’t “outcome based…”
So platforms like Distributed (and in my past Topcoder) handles this through clear requirements, feedback (education) to mitigate this (at the project or task level) but to also provide proper payment for the outcome.
00:52:32 Matt Jensen: Payment in escrow, payment protections based on deliverables.
00:55:52 Todd Brous: Reacted to “Payment in escrow, p…” with 🤔
00:55:56 Peter McPartlin: I wonder is the messaging here is too broad……..The EU could argue that they are trying to protect the livelihoods of freelancers. Would the message be more effective if it was more focused on not treating all freelancers the same?
00:56:29 Adam Morehead: So the individual value on “freedom” of being a freelancer
00:57:10 Glen Hodgson: document two on Working Conditions: https://freetradeeuropa.eu/platform-economy-studies
00:57:54 Adam Morehead: What intrigues me is the algorithm focus
00:57:55 Todd Brous: Replying to “So the individual va…”
That “value” – with “outcome based work” – is disproportionate to the risk that, on average, the freelancer accepts when engaging in the work.
00:57:57 Open Assembly: Peter McPartlin Co-founder at The Indie List: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-mcpartlin-b82bb77/
01:00:22 Thomas O’Malley: The beginning of the end of all value creation “Im with the government, Im here to help”
01:00:25 Open Assembly: Mark your calendars for our next Community Call on Thursday, October 5 with Jay Jamrog, Futurist and Founder of Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) who is going to present some new research and lead a session titled “Changing Mindset’s from Scarcity of Talent to Sources of Skills”
01:00:46 Mark Hannant: Great discussion. Thanks Glen, Adam and Agnieszka.
01:00:54 Agnieszka Porebska: Reacted to “Great discussion. Th…” with 👍🏻
01:01:04 marcello magalhaes: Reacted to “Great discussion. Th…” with 👍🏻
01:03:11 Open Assembly: Thanks to Glen, Adam and Agnieszka for sharing your valuable time!
01:03:13 Thomas Lee: Thank you all for the insightful discussion!
01:03:16 Adam Morehead: Reacted to “Great discussion. Th…” with 👍🏻
01:03:17 Rochelle HAYNES: Agreed! Thanks guys very relevant!
01:03:25 Todd Brous: Thank you!!!
