FREELANCERS AS REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PRECARIAT.

With the spread of digital technologies in the labor market there is a demand for new types of goods and services, which can be performed by one person remotely using the Internet. People who provide their services are not part of the staff of companies. They are independent in finding customers and projects, often do not enter into employment contracts, many of them may not even know their employer. This new type of workers calls themselves freelancers. J.T. Toshchenko in his work [1] refers freelancers to the precariat, giving them not the most positive characteristics. Guy Standing calls them a "new dangerous class"[2]. Since the precariat occupies the lowest position in the stratification structure of society, the problem of stigmatization of freelancers as representatives of this class is revealed.

The purpose of this paper is to try to determine the appropriateness of defining freelancers as precariat. In order to achieve this goal, we will examine the definitions of freelance and precariat, find their similarities, and compare the characteristics of Guy Standing's precariat with the results of empirical research on freelancing.

The study of the precariat has been engaged in by such scholars as: P. Bourdieu, G. Standing, R. Castel, R. Sennett, J.T. Toshchenko, S.A. Druzhilov, Z.T. Golenkova, Y.V. Goliusov[3, 2, 4, 5, 1, 6, 7].

Freelancing was studied by such researchers as:, P. Drucker, D. Kitching, D. Smallbone, E. Bibby, D. Pinka, T. Mallone , I.B. Bubnova, A. Muradova, A.N. Sorokina, D.O. Strebkov, V.S. Kharchenko.[8. 9, 10, 11, 12,13, 14, 15, 16, 17]

One of the first to give a definition was French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu,[3] who proposed the notion of the precariat as an unstable, unprotected social stratum.

Druzhilov A. S. interprets the term precariat as: "a social stratum, which includes people who do not have permanent earnings, place of work social guarantees, often their employment is informal."[6]

According to J. Toshchenko: "The precariat is a fundamentally new formation, signifying the presence of a social stratum that represents the alienation not only of the results of labor, but also of significant social groups experiencing particularly sophisticated forms of exploitation of their labor, their knowledge, their skills, and, ultimately, their quality of life."[1] These definitions carry a clear negative connotation.

Consider the concept of "freelancer". American researcher D. Pink interprets (it) as an "independent contractor", i.e. a person who works for himself, selling his services, usually alone, he is focused on short-term projects and on the result of the work done. [13]

Pink refers to freelancers as representatives of various professions; they are united by working outside the organization and autonomy, which is expressed in the freedom to choose projects, clients, time for work, and the planning of the labor process itself. A nation of free agents represents people who will derive satisfaction and self-development from their work.

Freelancing is considered in a narrow sense by Kingston University professors D. Kitching and D. Smallbone. In addition to the attributes highlighted by Pink, the scholars add professionalism as well. "Freelancers are a subset within self-employed workers who are distinguished on the basis of high qualifications, their activities are relevant to the knowledge economy" [12]. The study of the phenomenon of freelancing is important not only because this type of labor activity has no legal regulation, but also because in recent years this term has become self-defining for many people, according to the VCIOM study, every tenth citizen of the Russian Federation (11%) self-defines himself as a freelancer. [18]

Already from the definitions we can see the main similar characteristics, such as the lack of a permanent place of work, salary, independence in the search for a job seeker. For further analysis, let us compare the characteristics of the precariat by the British sociologist Guy Standing, which he gave in his book "Precariat. The New Dangerous Class" and the results of empirical studies of freelancers:. A joint study by FL.ru and the Higher School of Economics "Freelancer Census 2019" [19].

Table 1.

Comparison of freelancer and precariat characteristics

Thus, after comparing the characteristics, a number of conclusions can be made. First, unlike the representatives of the precariat, freelancers can have different forms of employment: they can be both permanent employees working remotely, combine freelancing and permanent work, and freelancers. Secondly, the average earnings of today's freelancers are equal to or higher than the average earnings in Russia, which does not coincide with the characteristic of low wages of representatives of the precariat. Third, registered freelancers have certain social guarantees, unlike representatives of the precariat. Fourth, freelancers, like representatives of the precariat, have unregulated working hours.

Thus, in spite of the fact that the characteristics of freelancers and the precariat partially coincide, in our opinion it is not correct to classify modern freelancers as representatives of the precariat. We cannot say that freelancers occupy the lowest position in the stratification structure of society. Today, freelancing is a conscious choice. If the precariat has to come to terms with the absence of social guarantees, labor protection and the status of a temporary worker, then the freelancer consciously gives it up in favor of working for himself. Today, a freelancer can be a highly qualified professional who chooses to specialize, with a high salary, working to realize his or her creative abilities.

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