One. Most bloggers are independent contractors. You must be and employee to be represented by a union. This is a federal law. And you will probably have an easier time changing the law than your employment status.

Two. There are so many people who write and want their words to be read that there is a limitless supply of strikebreakers available. Most bloggers are easily replaceable. Their words are more valuable to them than anyone else (harsh reality). The only way not to get dumped in a labor dispute is to build up a large personal following. But if you’ve already done that you can achieve the same results by threatening to take your words elsewhere. So if you are really good, you don’t need the union. And good is defined not by the quality of your writing but by your ability to make a large number of people actually care about your writing and to want more.

I say go for it, I know Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, parts of India and South Africa are just waiting for the chance to replace the American bloggers who try to get healthcare from a site that earns less than a taxi driver.

This is insane, the whole idea of the internet is you don’t need to be at the whim of corporations, you don’t need lots of money or a degree to start your own blog, there isn’t bags of red tap to wade through like starting a small business … you really can just do it yourself, if your current blogging network/editor isn’t paying enough, just start your own, it would take less than 2 hours to do so!

Why are they trying to bureaucratize the internet? The whole point of the internet and its success is the lack of bureaucrats.

“Whadda ya’ mean y’use didn ‘t Digg my post?”
A group of highly-naive bloggers have discussed forming a union for bloggers. On the surface this is a painfully dumb idea. But maybe we should take a second look at it. Some …

Aside from time, the barriers to entry and start-up capital in this industry are effectively zero point nada. If you know that everyone and their cousin is capable of entering this market, what exactly is there to complain about?

Don’t think you are getting paid enough? Wish you could get rich quick? Holding your breath for a new car? Uhh, trying to be a professional blogger is probably not the best industry for you to spend much time in.

[Note: this is not directed at anyone but unionists]

A coalition of left-wing bloggers is trying to form a labor union that they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining and set professional standards….

Or (c) be something that some sh*tbag pothead talks to you about all night at some party in the Haight that you didn’t want to go to but your friend promised they would.

The MBA really isn’t all that concerned about wages though–I think their sentiment is that wage-earning is up to us to figure out. They’re more about “blogger’s rights” and protection from false libel claims, as well as fairness and transparency.

Quite frankly, given the number of tech conferences that are all of a sudden limiting the number of press creds they give out (NOT to most bloggers–but lots to what they consider “working” journalists) we might need a credentialling arm more than we might need a wage-fighting arm.

(and yes, I’m an MBA member)

Not sure what your comment has to do with Unionizing Bloggers?

There are many other, more profitable, ways to monetize a site other than Google.

Google is the at the end of my backfill chain

Seriously though:

1. Unionization limits supply meaning consumers are hurt

2. Blogs don’t generate that much money so there’s no reason to have minimum wages and benefits for bloggers

3. Bloggers can start their own blog if they’re unhappy with their pay. The barriers to entry are extremely low.

Read TechDumpster for a more detailed discussion.

1) AdSense (the bread and butter of many bloggers) is not disclosing the % of compensation going to the sites. They should be forced to disclose how much they pay.

2) We should be allowed to specify (in robots.txt or otherwise) how to treat excerpts from our sites. Using them in search engine is fine. But Google is shamelessly using structural information and photos culled from blogs in its own products (like restaurant search in Google maps). Bloggers who collected the info and took photos get no money and in almost all cases, no clicks! At the very least, they should be allowed to say whether or not their information should be there.

If you are a “professional” blogger who is working for the”man” and are feeling oppressed, what to do?

If your writing stands up and you create compelling content, your audience will grow, so why write for someone else?

Start your own website “blog” and you will make ALL the income, of course that does come with risks and costs such as hosting, design, SEO etc…

This is what I did, I write, program and produce my site. I spend a LOT of time tweaking the site code and design.

I do get to keep my earning and I do what I want on the site, in turn it pays my rent. But is took a long time to get there.

Stop whining, if you don’t like writing for nothing or for the man, do your own thing. That is the American way.

As far as paid blogging goes – I think a Union could be really valuable, but you might have to rethink of what a Union would do for a mostly self-employed, subcontracted workforce. There are a lot of service elements that could eventually lead to organizing.

One example: I’m a member of the German Verdi union that offers freelancers a simple online forum to anonymously post their wages, which proves to be a great tool for negotiations. I bet writers of a certain big US-based entertainment blog wouldn’t endure writing 100 posts per month for 1000 dollars if they knew how much people got paid at other blogs …

Néhány balos (értsd: demokrata) amerikai blogger azon munkálkodik nagy serényen, hogy valamilyen szakszervezet-szerűt hozzanak létre, amelyik amellett, hogy lefektetné a "szakmai standardokat", még a társadalombiztosítási jogviszo…