FREELANCERS UNION BLOG

  • Director Dispatches, Advocacy

Quiet Revolutionaries Grow the Map

Yesterday, we rolled out our new interactive “How to be a Quiet Revolutionary” map. Honestly, we didn’t know what kind of response it would get.

Members and other freelancers have been telling me for years that there’s a major social change underway -- that so many of us are searching for a new economy that fits our values.

We hoped to offer one gathering place where our members and many others could help each other find the shops, businesses, and organizations who are making the Quiet Revolution possible.

The response has been remarkable. Hundreds of supportive tweets and Facebook posts. Great press coverage in places like Shareable, Mother Jones, and Next City Magazine.

And, most important, more than 100 submissions from across the country, like:

Wheatsfield Co-op -- Ames, Iowa
Submitted by Neil Sutton
“Open since 1974, Wheatsville is a consumer owned food cooperative serving a wide selection of natural and organic products.”

Collective Copies -- Amherst, MA
Submitted by Reed Schimmelfing
“For 26 years, a worker-owned and union print shop. “We all do the work, we all make the decisions, we all benefit from doing those things well. We’re locally owned, not part of a park-paving, pocket-padding, power-pandering corporate chain.”

Eclectic Artists Co-op -- Urbana, Illinois
Submitted by Robert McGrath
Workspace and pop up sales for local artists”

reDiscover Center -- Los Angeles, CA
Submitted by Carolyn Gray Anderson
“reDiscover Center promotes resource conservation, creativity, and community engagement through material reuse. Here, all Angelenos -- children and adults -- have an outlet for acquiring and donating reusable material. reDiscover achieves its mission and vision for sustainability through strategic initiatives held in its reuse warehouse, gallery and event space, and at schools and in the community.”

The Wedding Redresser
Submitted by Susan Ruddle
"I started a Bridal alterations studio by organizing a collective of costume and fashion makers/designers who alter wedding dresses at twice the usual industry pay rate to support their own work"

A movement is building. The Quiet Revolution is happening, even if it hasn’t made the front pages yet. There are other maps like those by Shareable and SolidarityNYC that are bringing this idea to other audiences. And the new workforce is leading the way.

Sara Horowitz As the founder of Freelancers Union, Sara has been a voice for freelancers for over two decades.