Empowering Freelancers With Security And Solidarity Through Cooperatives

Magdalena Ziomek came to Germany from Poland 25 years ago and describes freelancing as a lot of struggle behind the freedom. At Freelance Unlocked 2024 she presents a model she works in: a freelancer cooperative in which members become employees of a company they co-own. What follows is her account of German rules in May 2024, which may have changed.

**What the talk covers**

- The problems she sees: clients pay freelancers last or forget to, German bureaucracy is hard without German, and freelancers are outside unemployment benefit and, in her words, treated differently by banks and landlords. She says every fourth freelancer in Germany has a migrant background.
- How it works: you find and negotiate your own clients. The cooperative invoices them, collects the payment and pays you a monthly salary with social contributions, based on confirmed contracts. A six-month contract can start paying out from month one.
- The cost: 9 percent of every invoice and a one-time share of 50 euros. Each member has one vote at the general assembly, however many shares they hold. She says members' invoices grow by about 30 percent after a year.
- What it does not do: it does not find clients, though she says work comes out of the community of nearly 1,000 members. It is for service work, not licensed professions.
- Her claim for clients: because they contract with the cooperative, they are protected from false self-employment (Scheinselbstständigkeit).
- Background: the model began with musicians in Belgium 25 years ago and now runs in eight countries.

**From the Q&A**

She says full social security coverage needs about 760 euros a month on average, but a single contract at year end can also start employment. Members can keep clients outside the cooperative, and she says a slow-paying client becomes the cooperative's problem, not the member's.

**Who it's for**

Freelancers who want to understand a cooperative model and its trade-offs.