When 11,500 film and TV screenwriters walked off the job on May 2 in the United States, they denounced deteriorating working conditions, unfair wages and the threat artificial intelligence poses to their livelihoods.

But one of their demands has caught the eye: in search of a modicum of stability, Hollywood screenwriters want the studios to hire them by the week. They reject the framework that the studios want to impose, freelancing by the day. In short, they refuse the uberization of their profession.

“The studios want to pay us one day a week as if we were Uber drivers,” says actor Adam Conover. David Simon, creator of The Wire, says the screenwriting profession has shifted into “a ruthless economy of resourcefulness”. According to Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, who wrote and produced Law and Order: SVU, “we fight for writing to be a career, not misery.”

“In the future, writers could be hired on a daily basis to work on an ongoing series,” says Takeuchi Cullen. The screenwriters are already self-employed, but working on call would deprive them of any security, exposing them to the impossibility of planning their finances and paying their rent. “Now, TV writers would go from one small contract to another, trying to scrounge up an annual income. »

For them, daily contract rhymes with precariousness. That’s also the view of Minnesota state officials, who this month passed a law guaranteeing minimum wages for Uber and Lyft drivers. A way to give a little security to this precarious profession. But Democratic Party Gov. Tim Walz vetoed it on Thursday, showing just how difficult protecting the on-call workforce is.

The writers’ strike puts short-term self-employment under the microscope, where you work for multiple companies or for yourself, often with irregular hours. It’s an old concept: it’s like musicians, who give concerts. Artists and creators of all kinds live according to the same hazards to sell their works. Moreover, the American expression to describe the precariousness of work is gig economy (gig means “concert”, in the entertainment world).

“Self-employment has become a dirty word. Ten years ago, it still evoked the possibility of getting rid of the 9 to 5,” says Louis Hyman, author of Temp (as in “temporary employee”), a book on the gig economy and the precariousness of work in the States -United.

We do not know the extent of short-term work in the United States, partly because it has so many variations. Federal data and academic studies suggest that 10-15% of American workers make a living from “alternative” work. But according to some figures, a third of American workers occasionally earn extra income from this type of work.

Drivers at Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and others make up just a small percentage of that workforce, but their realities — falling incomes, rising expenses, more dangerous work — reverberate across the board. professions affected by precariousness.

Disputes between unions and companies have erupted across the country over the status of drivers. Trade unionists denounce that the platforms consider their drivers to be independent contractors. This deprives them of the protections of labor law and social benefits and, in addition, they are not allowed to act completely autonomously. The companies counter that drivers prefer the flexibility of this status and that they have made adjustments that offer some social benefits without sacrificing this flexibility.

Some drivers say their wages have gone down. When Eid Ali hit the road for Uber and Lyft in Minnesota a decade ago, he was making up to $400 a week driving full time. In recent years, it’s more like $100 or $150, before expenses, for the same number of hours.

For him and his colleagues, “awareness took time,” Ali says. At first, they were thrilled with the decent pay and the flexibility of self-employment. Today, they are more inclined to advise against this work.

Mr. Ali, who chairs the Uber/Lyft Drivers Association of Minnesota, has been an advocate for the self-employment bill in that state.

Other drivers were not disappointed and this work is still popular as a supplementary income. A business-funded coalition called Protect App-Based Drivers and Services says driver earnings are on the rise. According to her, there is progress. For example, the California law that prevents drivers from being considered employees, but grants them a minimum wage and certain benefits.

“More than 1.3 million Californians work with a ridesharing or delivery platform because this type of work offers guaranteed income and benefits like a health care allowance,” says Molly Weedn, spokesperson for the coalition. .

According to Alexsiya Flores, a part-time driver for DoorDash and Shipt (a delivery service) in Los Angeles, there isn’t as much “negative feedback” anymore. “I see improvements” through initiatives like the California law. She is a filmmaker and supports the industry.

Yet labor law experts argue that short-term contracts are generally seen as low-paid work or exploitation, in part because of how companies like Uber are viewed.

“Uber and Lyft have heightened that negative connotation,” says Laura Padin, director of labor structures at the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for drivers to gain employee status. “People’s image of this type of work has changed. People find that it’s not as good as we thought” at first.

Low pay and poor conditions are not exclusive to self-employment. This may even be why odd jobs continue to multiply.

“These low-paying jobs only exist because the rest of the economy has failed the American worker,” says Mr. Hyman, author of Temp. Financial insecurity is such in the retail and service sector that Uber ends up looking like a favorable option.