End the freelance pay delay
Want to be paid on time? The deadline is approaching to let the government know.
Article by Tim Dawson, NUJ freelance organiser.
When you have completed a job, you deserve to be paid. It is a simple axiom, to be found, in varying forms, in the laws of most lands, as well as in the holy books of every major religion. But this straightforward obligation is seemingly unknown to many media employers.
Indeed, so prevalent is spectacularly late payment in the media that freelances increasingly mark the moment each year when they receive the final remuneration for work completed in the preceding calendar year.
“Last payment for 2024’s work just in”, one freelance noted last week on social media. It is now October. The work that closed her 2024 account had been submitted in November to a Sunday newspaper whose parent company made over £250m last year. Her story eventually ran at the end of August. Remuneration was delayed further because of what is laughingly called ‘payment on publication’. In practice, accounts department inefficiency held up settlement for a further two months.
Amazingly, her eleven-month wait was not the most egregious pay delay suffered by this particular freelance. Another paper owed her £15,000 for nearly half the year.
‘Kill fees’ are an equally disgraceful practice. Newspapers and magazines commission work, that is supplied to deadline and is of the expected quality. Then the news agenda shifts, and the space for which the commissioned article is planned is filled by something else. Through no fault of their own, and with no scope of appeal, the freelance journalist is paid a ‘kill fee’. On a good day, this might be half of what was originally agreed. Some papers pay nothing in such circumstances.
Another typical practice is the use of ‘implicit contacts’ that take from freelances more rights than expected. This often comes to light when an article or photograph reappears in another, often foreign, publication. The freelance has sold their article to a UK title, imagining, as the law prescribes, that they retain the rights for it to be published elsewhere. When the freelance complains that they did not enter a syndication contract, they are told that this is ‘industry standard practice’ so they have no redress. Or they might be pointed to a set of ‘terms and conditions’ to which they had never agreed.
I am but scratching the surface of the ways that massive, often international, companies use their wholly unequal market power to fill their pages on the cheap. I can’t think of another occupation where workers are expected to endure such treatment. In an age where plumbers and electricians often require payment in advance, freelance journalists – whose average earnings according to one survey are just £17,000 per annum – are suffering to massage the cash flow of vast global corporations.
These issues affect as many as 40,000 freelance journalists in the UK, whose value should not be underestimated.
The flexibility they allow has enabled the UK’s news media to become arguably the most dynamic on earth. Freelances bring far greater diversity to newsrooms than do staff journalists. And they contribute granular reporting of communities that are otherwise beyond the reach of mainstream media. Many work for love, in return for which they face the worst kind of exploitation.
So what can we do, asked the patient freelance who waited for so long? And for once, I had a simple answer – tell the government how you have been treated.
The Department for Business and Trade is consulting on how business law and regulation can be amended to improve conditions for small enterprises. Launching this initiative Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, said: “From builders and electricians to freelance designers and manufacturers – hardworking people are being forced to spend hours chasing payments instead of growing their businesses. It’s unfair, it’s exhausting, and it’s holding Britain back. So, our message is clear: it’s time to pay up.”
A clearer signal of the potential for change is hard to imagine. But let’s keep the champagne on ice just for the moment. Counter lobbying by the news platforms is likely, government enthusiasm may cool, the Prime Minister might even ‘move on’.
As a very minimum, though, we must ensure that there is not a legislator in Westminster who does not have some idea of the damage and pain that results from this callous behaviour. Many of those affected are relatively economically marginal. Delayed payments lead to hunger, forced borrowing and housing cost arrears.
If freelance journalists can convey that narrative in terms that are vivid and compelling then hopefully in future the stories they sell will be on their own terms, rather those dictated by bullies.
Visit the NUJ's 'Stop the freelance rip-off' campaign page to learn more about the government consultation and take action.