Occupationally Based Groups

Occupationally based groups—professional associations like the World Wide Web Artists' Consortium and unions like the Communications Workers of America— have as their mission forwarding the interests of collections of workers active in the same industry or possessing similar workplace skills. These organizations are logical candidates to step in and assume some of the roles formerly played by firms.

Unions and professional associations already play these roles in film production and construction, two industries where free lancing is the norm. For example, members of the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) need to earn only $6,000 in a calendar year to qualify for full health benefits for the entire subsequent year. In recognition of the short shelf-life of many actors' careers, the Guild also provides very generous pension benefits. In addition, SAG offers educational and professional development seminars to its members. To fund these services, SAG contracts stipulate that producers pay a surcharge, which amounts to as much as 30 percent of actors' base pay, into the Guild's benefits fund. In the construction industry, workers often move from firm to firm when they finish one project and go on to the next. To accommodate these circumstances, construction trade unions offer their members fully portable health and pension benefits. Members can maintain one health plan and continue paying into the same pension fund, regardless of which firm employs them on a project.

SAG and the construction unions can serve as models for other occupationallybased groups looking to play a role in the flexible workplace of the twenty-first century. Other groups that may play an interesting future role university alumni associations, as well as "alumni" organizations comprised of former employees of a firm.

Workforce Brokers

Many firms that serve as an intermediary between employers and workers, like the staffing firms and Web-based project brokers, have been been aggressive about offering benefits and training, as well as attempting to create a sense of community, in a bid to become the psychological workplace home for the workers who affiliate with them. Such efforts have to date been directed primarily at highly skilled workers, whose wages are sufficient to support the cost of such perks. Providing a comparable array of benefits to lower-paid workers has not proven as attractive to for-profit firms. As a result, non-profit community groups, sometimes aided by government subsidies, have been active at this end of the staffing market.