Within the framework of theCall for projects "Forms of the collaborative economy launched by the research departments of the Ministries of Labor and Solidarity (DARES and DREES), Yannick Fondeur, a social science researcher at the CNAM, has undertaken to study the freelancing, at the crossroads of three spheres with major issues in terms of work and employment:
- Freelancing, regularly presented as the advanced plate of "the future of work";
- platformization and the "collaborative economy";
- digital professions, a segment of the labor market that is "under pressure" and a reservoir of qualified jobs for the years to come.
Freelancing platforms ...
Being a freelancer is generally an identity claimed by individuals.Tensions are high on the supply of digital labor, "which gives workers significant market power: moreover, "some of the practices of the service companies that have dominated the digital business services market for several decades also often act as a deterrent."
Faced with digital service companies (ESN, ex-SSII, Sociétés de Services en Ingénierie Informatique), the freelancing platforms put forward a "disintermediated" model based on a reduced and transparent commission. For several years now, they have been working hard to get themselves listed by the purchasing departments of major accounts.
In France, several dozen players call themselves freelancing platforms. "This shared term masks a very wide variety of models. They are often hybrids between "platforms" and IT services companies.
... and autonomous collectives of freelancers
Autonomous freelance collectives claim to be able to form real teams of freelancers on demand. " Formed under extremely varied forms and often only partially formalized on the legal level, they share the objective of articulating the respect of the independence of each member, the perennial mutualization of common resources and the possibility of collectively carrying out services".The movement of creation of freelance collectives seems to have accelerated in the recent period.
Indeed, if the freelancers members of these collectives are numerous to be registered on the platforms, and if some of them work from time to time through this way, "their objective is clearly to do without these intermediaries who put them in competition and which they consider that they pull the prices down. Overall, for freelancers, the network, in the strongest sense, is the best provider of quality work opportunities. And for collectives, this characteristic is multiplied tenfold by the development of a "brand" which then becomes a common good.
The author concludes:"For freelancers, platforms are generally only one of several ways of finding assignments: IT services companies and Web agencies remain important intermediaries for them, and they all seek to develop their network in order to dispense with third-party players. Freelance collectives are largely based on a logic of pooling assignment opportunities.Référence :
