On being an independent contractor (or freelancer)

When I’m not writing or doing my academic research, I work as a self-employed copy-editor and proofreader in corporate communications. This part of the year – February and March – is by far my busiest time. I confess: during this time, I push myself to the limit, working evenings, weekends, sometimes going weeks without a full day off, to make the money that will enable me to spend big chunks of time in the summer and autumn writing and doing my uni research.

But there’s a cost. Long hours at my desk mean my back hurts, my eyes sting, my head aches. Sometimes there’s also a mental cost, as I discovered a couple of years ago when I suffered badly from burn-out. But if I take time off, then, being an independent contractor, there’s no sick pay, no holiday pay, no employer to keep paying into my pension. No guarantee that someone else won’t take my workload in my absence and I’ll be able to get it back.

What’s this got to do with pro-wrestling? Well, pro-wrestlers are also classified as independent contractors. Even AEW and WWE performers. The specifics of WWE performers’ employment were outlined by Chris Smith in Forbes magazine (2015): the performer is responsible for the costs of training, food and travel; the performer has no right to sue the WWE in the event of injury; the WWE can terminate a contract in the event of injury lasting more than six weeks. Also, any attempts to unionise in the pro-wrestling industry have always been shot down. So, in the WWE today, says Smith, performers are still classified as independent contractors, yet they are not automatically free to take on work outside the company (apart from company-sanctioned collaborations with, for example, TNA or AAA) . This is despite studies such as David Cowley’s stating that ‘the final tally of the IRS 20-factor test reveals that sixteen of the twenty factors clearly indicate that wrestlers are employees’ (170). In other words, there’s no legal justification for WWE performers’ classification as independent contractors.

What does this mean for storytelling, in particular the ‘work, shoot confessional’? Though their working schedule has eased slightly in the modern day, pro-wrestlers can perform 300+ days a year. That’s a lot of strain on their bodies. So, there’s a long history of pro-wrestlers working through injuries and pain from fear of ‘losing their spot’ on the card, and, of course, losing money. Which led to, particularly, in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, numerous stories of pro-wrestlers with painkiller addictions – a result of this culture of working through the pain.

What my research aims to do is explore these issues, not solely in regard to physical wellbeing, but also mental. As reality TV and constructed reality became influential in early 2000s culture, pro-wrestling, ever the cultural chameleon, tapped into this. Stories of pro-wrestlers’ real-life pain – addiction, heartbreak, infidelity, workplace bullying – were brought to the screen. But, if pro-wrestlers have a precarious, unprotected employment status, and they are overvaluing money and opportunity, what choices do they have when asked to turn their real-life trauma into a TV storyline? What ownership do they have over their own story?

A client’s never asked me to weave the story of my burn-out into a FTSE 250 company’s annual report. If they did, what would I do? Well, there’s the idea for my third novel.


*In the unlikely event, a pro-wrestler reads this, please don’t think I’m comparing back pain from sitting at a desk too long, to taking 1000s of in-ring bumps.


Further reading:
Cowley, David. “Employees vs. Independent Contractors and Professional Wrestling: How the WWE is Taking a Folding-Chair to the Basic Tenets of Employment Law.” University of Louisville Law Review, 53, 2014, pp.143–71

Jansen, B. “’It’s still real to me’: Contemporary professional wrestling, neo-liberalism, and the problems of performed/real violence”. Canadian Review of American Studies, 50(2), 2020, pp.302–330.

Shoemaker, D. The squared circle : life, death and professional wrestling. Gotham Books, 2016.

Smith, Chris. “Breaking Down How WWE Contracts Work”. Forbes, 28 March 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2015/03/28/breaking-down-how-wwe-contracts-work/?sh=fad3e9a6713f.