I work for a big media company that touts itself as progressive, but on paper I don't actually work for the company because I'm classified as an independent contractor, and I have been for over 4 years.
During that time, I've been strung along with the dangling carrot of being given actual employment, which would include much higher pay and benefits. I haven't had health insurance in years. I get no paid time off. Have no retirement savings.
I've piled up so much debt from trying to make ends meet while relying on this employer for my income. Because of the contractor status, the pay is sporadic, despite being more reliable in the past couple of years than it was earlier on. I've been looking for other jobs, but the job openings are sparse, hiring processes incredibly slow, and it's really who you know in this industry to get ahead unfortunately. I've also looked into moving into different fields if possible but still no luck, while trying to do the best work possible even though my soul is gradually drained from me. No one where I work seems to care at all about the suffering this has caused me, and I find myself paralyzed in figuring out a way to address it. Publicizing it would just burn bridges and I feel like I'd come off as desperate and irrational. There's the whole misclassification employment angle, but incredibly difficult to prove and I don't even know where to start on that and feel like it would just get me discarded completely and find myself in an even worse situation than the one, I've been in. It makes it so difficult to continue working when I'm constantly broke and stressed out about that and feel worthless, disrespected, and discarded.
I know freelancing is typically exploitative but I'm not sure anyone else has done as much work for as big of an employer for so long under the classification. The 'free' refers to the freedom of ever having money in your bank account and the lancing refers to the constant impalement of any remoteness of self-worth as you're treated like garbage and your work is an unappreciated afterthought.