A Change in Name
A Change in Name
We are in the process of landing on the new name (hopefully, third time’s the charm).
In March 2023, we changed this program’s name from Rustle Lab to Sol Center for Liberated Work. As our work grew, Rustle Lab didn’t do enough to reflect our aspirations. In selecting the Sol Center name, we hoped to embed our aspirations for this work directly into the identity of the program itself. For us, Sol represented the energy of the sun to fuel new life and ecosystems. As a Spanish word, we felt it honored the immigrant and marginalized communities we hope to work alongside, as well as our California home. And it formed the root of other words that reflect the program’s priorities – solutions, solidarity, and solo workers.
Meanwhile, Liberated Work encapsulated our world-building ambitions. For us, liberated work was about self-determination by creating new systems that no longer equate “work” with “worth”; where the jobs we do to earn money do not dictate access to benefits, security, time to rest, or possibilities for the future. Liberated work is not just about how we pay our bills, but also the work we do to care for our families, participate in our communities, and freely express artistically and culturally.
When we rolled out the new name, however, we heard that it wasn’t landing in the ways we hoped. For some, Sol was too easily understood as Soul, and the deep cultural resonance that term holds for Black communities. In addition, Liberated Work was less understood as our stance on labor issues and, instead, perceived as borrowing too heavily from the language of Black Liberation movements. For others, the Spanish word Sol felt appropriating in the absence of LatinX leadership within our program.
As an arts and culture organization, we know that language and representation matter, so we have taken critical responses seriously. We are grateful for those who shared their honest reactions, all of which were shared and received as acts of solidarity and support. Hence, we are changing the program’s name and, in this process, being more deliberate and thoughtful about our intentions and how we show up.
We are in the process of landing on the new name (hopefully, third time’s the charm). If you would like to offer suggestions (we see you, creatives!), please take a look around our site, read what we’re up to, and email us ideas at solcenter@cciarts.org. No prizes awarded except the glow of knowing you are helping an endeavor that is meant to help you!
Imagining Social Protections for All
Imagining Social Protections for All
Bringing together worker advocates and movement leaders to imagine new systems of protection
Althea Erickson
Althea Erickson is the Director of the Sol Center for Liberated Work, a program of the Center for Cultural Innovation. Previously, Althea was the Vice President of Global Government Affairs and Impact at Etsy, and Advocacy & Policy Director at Freelancers Union.
Sometimes when we’re living inside a system, it’s hard to imagine what an alternative could look like.
In our desire to make progress–to improve the way things work–we focus on a tweak here, a shift in implementation there. And to some extent, that can be a good and pragmatic strategy. But it has its downsides.
When we seek to fix the systems we live in, we may unintentionally reinforce and entrench ones that simply don’t work, and worse, undermine our hope of achieving more. For example, the U.S. social safety net excludes huge swaths of workers–domestic workers, farm workers, self-employed workers, sex workers, and undocumented workers, just to name a few. Some of these groups were explicitly excluded to appease Southern segregationists, while others were merely overlooked due to the nature of the economy at the time. To date, much of the effort to close those gaps has been to focused on expanding existing systems to new populations, for example including domestic workers in labor laws or excluded workers in unemployment insurance. But what if the 21st century work force simply doesn’t fit into 20th century systems?
What if we started fresh, and reimagined a set of social and economic protections that met the needs of today’s workforce, unencumbered by the past? And what if we started that conversation with the workers who have been erased from the conversation, yet are most excluded from today’s safety net? What types of protections might we imagine together? And wouldn’t that system be more likely to actually work for all?
Those questions underpinned Reimagining Social Protections for Independent and Other Traditionally Excluded Workers, a convening we co-hosted with the Urban Institute in December 2022. The convening brought together worker advocates representing nontraditional workers from across a wide swath of sectors–domestic workers, migrant workers, temp workers, street vendors, migrant workers, sex workers, and more. Together, we set aside the constraints of today’s systems, and gave ourselves permission to imagine an alternative vision of economic security for today’s workforce, to dream beyond barriers of all kinds.
The ideas that garnered widespread support were pretty inspiring, and start to paint the picture, and the true possibility, of an alternative system of protections that isn’t contingent on your specific job or identity as a worker, but is guaranteed to you, as a human. In particular, attendees imagined:
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- Widespread adoption of guaranteed income and other cash transfer programs that offer a floor of protections for all workers regardless of employment status
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- Improvement of key social insurance programs, including healthcare, unemployment insurance, and retirement to make them affordable, portable, and universally available to everyone, regardless of their employment status
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- The establishment of a national worker bill of rights that would apply to all workers, regardless of sector, occupation, or employment status
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- Robust enforcement of labor laws and worker protections across all sectors
- Exploration of new models for building and wielding collective power, like sectoral bargaining
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Driving the discussion were some core ideas – and really cultural and narrative shifts – that we, as a society, need to grapple with.
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- We need to decouple work from worth.
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- All people deserve dignity.
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- We are full humans deserving support, not just in the narrow confines of our identities as workers.
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- Our labor is more than the labor we do to earn income. It is the labor we do to support our families, to strengthen our communities, and to express ourselves that makes life worth living.
- A just society recognizes the value of people as humans, and builds systems to support broader human flourishing.
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As inspiring as the visioning was, at times participants raised the challenges that stand in the way of moving from the systems we have to the systems we want, especially given the current political forces shaping policy today. And yet, there was palpable energy in the room around building greater connectivity and connection across these groups, to build greater collective power between and among nontraditional workers across sectors.
Yes, the challenges are great, but if we can align ourselves around a shared vision, we can start to build bridges to get from here to there.
You can read the full summary of the convening here. We, of course, welcome your voice in this ongoing conversation.
Convening Summary: Reimagining Social Protections For All
Convening Summary: Reimagining Social Protections For All
A Summary of the Virtual Convening on Reimagining Social Protections for Independent and Other Traditionally Excluded Workers
This December 2022 convening brought worker advocates and movement leaders together to reimagine social protections for all.
This summary describes the discussions at a virtual convening titled “Reimagining Social Protections for Independent and Other Traditionally Excluded Workers” and includes an artist's live visual notes taken during the event. We collaborated with the Urban Institute to host this convening in December 2022.
During this event, worker advocates, forward thinkers, and movement leaders imagined new systems of worker supports, protections, and power for those excluded from existing benefits and social protections, including independent contractors, temp workers, and workers in the arts.
What do gig workers really want?
What do gig workers really want?
We're thrilled to support new participatory research to find out.
Althea Erickson
Althea Erickson is the Director of the Sol Center for Liberated Work, a program of the Center for Cultural Innovation. Previously, Althea was the Vice President of Global Government Affairs and Impact at Etsy, and Advocacy & Policy Director at Freelancers Union.
For several years now, the conversation about gig work and the future of work has been hampered by the lack of good data.
Current measurements of the gig workforce are notoriously inconclusive and contradictory. Existing studies rely on conflicting definitions and overlapping terms (e.g., separating out or collapsing freelancers, contract workers, independent workers, itinerant workers, gig workers, etc.) that result in findings so disparate, they undermine the data’s usefulness and credibility.
Existing research also fails to capture the full diversity of gig workers across sectors. So often, the conversation focuses on app-based workers, but fails to consider informal workers, farm workers, street vendors, arts workers, and any number of other categories of non-traditional work who ALSO lack the benefits and protections tied to full time employment.
Moreover, existing research fails to uncover what workers say they need and what solutions they want. Ultimately, such data is necessary, not only to anchor any new effort to deliver benefits and protections outside of employment, but to build the political power that gig workers need to win them.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce Sol Center’s first grant, to support the Gig Worker Learning Project, a participatory research project by The Workers Lab and the Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative, seeking to understand gig workers’ needs and the solutions that will impact them most. The first phase of the project, which took place over 2022, included early stakeholder outreach and a landscape scan of existing gig workers research. The second phase will rely on participatory research methodology to develop a foundational understanding of gig workers’ most pressing challenges and identify solutions that workers feel would impact them personally.
Participatory research methods differ from traditional ones by positioning research subjects as collaborators and owners of the research process and data. In this, the Gig Worker Learning Project doesn’t just start with excluded and marginalized workers; it puts them in the driver's seat of research design, data collection, dissemination, and data ownership. The team will also build a cross-sector community of leaders, researchers, and worker organizations committed to gig and contract worker-centered knowledge, who can amplify findings and collectively frame their work from the perspective of gig workers.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the project will build infrastructure for power building across worker groups through a Participatory Research Toolkit that equips gig worker organizations with tools to collect ongoing data on workers’ lives. This data will bolster each organization’s ability to advocate on behalf of its members with policymakers, supporting their efforts to build political power. It will also form the basis of a larger national dataset about gig work, owned by gig worker groups.
In this, the project will build the infrastructure to enable cross-sectoral collaboration around a shared agenda for gig work, one rooted not in the perspectives of powerful interest groups, but in the perspectives of workers themselves. To the extent that the project will help create more open space in the debate, it will also equip worker organizations to fill it.
We couldn’t be more excited to support this project. Learn more about the work here!
Advocating for artists on the blockchain
Advocating for artists on the blockchain
Althea Erickson
Althea Erickson is the Director of the Sol Center for Liberated Work, a program of the Center for Cultural Innovation. Previously, Althea was the Vice President of Global Government Affairs and Impact at Etsy, and Advocacy & Policy Director at Freelancers Union.
Artists’ economic security depends on their ability to own and control their intellectual property rights, but they often lack the means or bargaining power to protect those rights.
For example, musicians often forgo rights to their work when signing record deals, while freelance writers must often sign contracts that give publishers full rights to their work in all forms in perpetuity. Unlike in many other countries, US visual artists don’t have a means to collect resale royalties on their work, even as those pieces grow in value over time.
The blockchain offers exciting opportunities for artists to take more control over their work, and expands ways for them to earn income from that work. It allows for more direct connection between artists and their fans, circumventing traditional gatekeepers. Through smart contracts and the metadata associated with NFTs, artists can set and enforce the terms of their license agreements in their work, including enabling many to collect resale royalties for the first time.
Given the opportunities and lack of traditional gatekeepers, it’s not surprising that many Black and Brown artists and creatives moved quickly into the space. Black individuals have been at the forefront of participating, legitimizing, and shaping the development of blockchain-based financial markets, activities, community forums, and art. We follow the artists we serve where they go, which is why we started exploring and learning about the web3 space.
We quickly learned that while the opportunities are significant, so are the risks, especially when it comes to artists protecting themselves and their work. In particular, the platforms themselves have significant power to set and enforce terms, limiting the promise of true self-determination for creatives.
To truly capture the ownership opportunities the blockchain offers, artists moving into the space need tools and information to help them set and enforce their rights. That’s why we commissioned Alex Glancy at the law firm Gundzik Gundzik Heeger LLP to write a report on the legal issues artists face on the blockchain (report forthcoming).
Given our interest in the issue, we were excited to learn in late 2022 that the U.S. government had undertaken a study into the issues surrounding intellectual property and NFTs. Policymakers are exploring whether current intellectual property laws need to be updated or changed, given the new technology. The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property requested that the US Copyright Office and US Patent and Trademark Office undertake a joint study exploring intellectual property issues and NFTs. As part of that study, the Offices requested written comments, as well as hosted several public roundtables on the topic.
We worked with other stakeholders from the arts community to collect feedback on the issues artists and creatives face in the NFT space, and collaborated with Alex to develop comments to the USPTO/USCO study. We also participated in one of the public roundtables the Copyright Office organized, advocating on behalf of the creatives CCI serves, especially those from marginalized communities. You can read our submission here, and watch the roundtable here.
In advocating for the arts workers and creatives we serve, we made four major points:
- Artists need better tools to understand and influence the ways NFT marketplace terms impact their intellectual property rights, including the ability to assess terms, determine licenses, as well as choose or change platforms
- There is significant legal uncertainty regarding the ways copyright law and contract law overlap on the blockchain, which creates copyright management and enforcement challenges for creators and inconsistencies in enforcement
- As is the case off the blockchain, small creators need education and technical assistance to help them protect and manage their intellectual property on the blockchain, in particular given the high barriers to informed entry in the market and the lack of trusted advisors, especially within marginalized communities
- While the blockchain offers ways small creators can support themselves via direct payments and resale royalties, we worry about their overdependence on too-few platforms that could potentially use their market power to strip artists of ownership of artwork, rights to reproduce, trademark, and other economic opportunities.
Yes, we’re excited about the opportunities blockchain technologies offer for arts workers to control and derive economic benefits from their work. However, lack of information, tools, support and means to exert collective power may undermine the potential of these technologies to help creators – especially creators from marginalized communities – achieve greater self-determination.
Contributing to this public study was just the first step we’re taking to advocate for artists' ownership rights in this space. In the days to come, we’ll be publishing the report drafted by Alex Glancy on legal issues artists face on the blockchain, sharing artists' experiences and challenges with lawmakers, and continuing to collaborate with our peers to uplift their voices in the public debate.
Have a story to share about your experience using blockchain technologies? We’d love to hear it here!
All workers should have wage and hour protections
All workers should have wage and hour protections
Althea Erickson
Althea Erickson is the Director of the Sol Center for Liberated Work, a program of the Center for Cultural Innovation. Previously, Althea was the Vice President of Global Government Affairs and Impact at Etsy, and Advocacy & Policy Director at Freelancers Union.
The recent political fights over misclassification–whether a worker should be classified as an employee or independent contractor–have been fierce, and a major priority of the labor movement.
Labor leaders often argue that the best way to protect all workers is to classify them as employees, while their antagonists–companies that rely on contract labor–often tout workers' desire for flexibility and independence without acknowledging their twin need for security and protections. As the public debate has become more polarized between these two positions, true independent workers–those who are not misclassified–are often overlooked.
Many arts workers fall into this middle category, and found themselves caught up in the debate around AB-5 in California, which established a much more stringent “ABC test” for determining whether a worker should be classified as an employee or an independent contractor, changing many arts workers from independent contractors into employees overnight. At the time, we commissioned the Urban Institute to publish an analysis of the proposed classification law on arts workers. Lawmakers in California are still sorting out the details of implementation, first through A.B. 2257, which exempted many arts professions from the law altogether, and more recently through S.B. 1116, which seeks to support nonprofit arts institutions' capacity to comply with the law. Other states are considering similar legislation, but the topic remains fraught.
The federal government is also looking at the issue of classification. In August 2022, the Department of Labor put out a request for comments on its new proposed classification rule. Though the proposed rule didn’t mark a meaningful departure from the status quo (it rolls back a Trump era rule that was put into place during the waning days of that administration), the open comment period felt like an important opportunity to uplift the experiences of arts workers and others working in the gig economy who may be rightly classified, but lack worker protections under labor laws.
We worked with allies in the arts to solicit feedback about arts workers' experiences, and heard about frustrations some creatives feel having to choose between security and flexibility, as well as common challenges bargaining for fair pay, given that independent contractors are not allowed to collectively bargain under the law.
Ultimately, we submitted these comments to the Department of Labor, which broadly supported the new rule because it enables more flexibility than the ABC test to determine a worker's classification, ensuring that those who are misclassified can get reclassified, while also allowing courts to consider the more nuanced circumstances many arts workers operate under. We also made the broader point that all workers, regardless of their classification, deserve wage protections and the right to collectively bargain.
Current law makes it difficult for independent contractors to collectively negotiate wage and hour standards and protections. We believe this could be rectified through several reforms, including allowing independent contractors to form unions under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), allowing secondary boycotts under the NLRA, clarifying that independent contractors may set industry wage standards and overtime protections without violating antitrust law, and enabling sectoral bargaining models that include independent contractors.
It bears mentioning that the issue of classification is tantamount to worker protection because we have, as a society, tied so many protections to employment. While proper classification of workers is one path to ensuring worker protections, it is not, and cannot, be the only path to ensuring that all workers have the social and economic protections that they deserve.
We believe that arts workers–and other gig workers who share their precarity–should not have to choose between the security and protections currently tied to full-time employment, and the flexibility, independence, and ownership rights that come with independence. As a society, we should guarantee flexibility AND security to all workers, regardless of their employment status.
