These workers have no benefits and no job security. They are part of the "reality tv" industry that took hold during the writer's strike in Hollywood. The article asserts that no outtakes from "The Apprentice," which may've contained inappropriate comments from Donald Trump, were leaked because these workers feared for their jobs. Freelance and contract work seems good for employers, but not for workers. The tie-in with the president-elect is nor surprising, but still creepy.
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/23/the-apprentice-employees-feared-professional-reprisal-over-leaks/
Freelance, "gig", contract work arrangements were mostly imposed on workers so employers could escape the obligations built up to their workers over two generations of employment contracts sought and won by labor unions for their regular, full-time members. Pensions, sick-days, medical care insurance and countless other "job benefits" could be reduced or eliminated by converting workers from regular, wage- or salary earners into contract, temp or other types of work arrangements. In short, it is a profit-driven "labor market reform" - to use the Orwellian language of modern spin masters. Of course, some workers (e,g, those who have children or elderly to take care of or who need regular medical attention) can benefit from "flexible" working hours but giving those neither requires nor warrants depriving workers of the benefits they had so long to struggle and sacrifice to obtain from an employer class relentlessly working to withdraw what it had earlier to give.
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