Blogging is becoming a profession. Dooce has been making a “comfortable enough middle class to upper-middle class income” since she put graphical ads on her blog in 2005 (Salt Lake Tribune, October 14, 2006 – sorry, you have to pay $2.90 to read the article). Over at ProBlogger, hundreds of full-time and would-be full-time bloggers discuss strategies. Now, some of these bloggers want to start a union. And there are already existing unions who want to recruit them:
“Bloggers are on our radar screen right now for approaching and recruiting into the union,” said Gerry Colby, president of the National Writers Union (Washington Post)
I think one of the main points of unions for freelance workers in the US is the ability to negotiate cheaper health insurance. I’m not sure what else they’d be doing.
marta klimowicz
;).
Michael Clarke
I’m not entirely sure who’s more desperate – the NWU chasing after bloggers’ subscriptions (haven’t they noticed how averse bloggers and Web 2.0-types as a species are to actually paying for something?) or bloggers after the validation of belonging to a union. Good point about the health insurance, though – that’s not a small issue in terms of the US.