Magdalena Ziomek hat Kunstgeschichte in Polen und Projektmanagement in Deutschland studiert. Sie bezeichnet sich selbst als Kreativarbeitende und soziale Unternehmerin. Seit 2006 setzt sich Magdalena Ziomek dafür ein, wirksame, maßgeschneiderte Lösungen zu entwickeln, um Menschen mit administrativen, finanziellen, sozialen und kulturellen Hindernissen dabei zu unterstützen ihren Lebensunterhalt zu verdienen und neue berufliche Perspektiven zu gewinnen.
Magdalena Ziomek ist Gründerin, Geschäftsführerin und Vorstandsmitglied folgender Organisationen: gemeinnütziger Verein „agitPolska“ (für Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund, seit 2006), gemeinnütziger Verein „Smart network of creative“ (für Künstler und Kreative, seit 2014), „Smart Coop“ (für Freiberufler, seit 2015) und gemeinnützige GmbH „Smart Bildungswerk“ (für Freiberufler aus dem Bildungs- und Ausbildungsbereich, seit 2019).
Vergangene Vorträge
Freelance Smarter: Unlock Stability and Success
Donnerstag, 15. Mai 2025, 11:10 Uhr
Learn how Smart’s innovative cooperative model empowers freelancers to enjoy the benefits of traditional employment while maintaining the flexibility of self-employment. Explore how this approach simplifies access to public health insurance and pension funds, enhancing your credibility with banks and institutions. Understand how membership can reduce administrative burdens, provide comprehensive insurance coverage, and offer a stable income through regular monthly salary payments.
Whether you're seeking long-term residency, navigating challenges as a digital nomad, or simply want more time for your work and personal life, this workshop will show you new ways to master these challenges in Germany.
Empowering Freelancers With Security And Solidarity Through Cooperatives
Mittwoch, 15. Mai 2024, 10:00 Uhr
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.