Derek Davis spent his working career as a 'Contractor' for RTE. He gave a particularly poignant interview about how much he wanted to be an employee.

Too late for Derek, RTE under severe pressure, carried out a review where 81 'contractors' were found to be misclassified as

as self-employed and were offered contracts of employment. Apart from 1 or 2 brave people in RTE, not a single journalist has take up the cudgel of bogus self employment within their own industry. When Seamus Dooley talks of a 'conspiracy of silence', it extends beyond politics.

The 'Conspiracy of Silence' about the employment abuses in their own industry, absolutely guarantees that similar abuses in other industries are not 'newsworthy' either.

I don't blame journalists, how could I, they too are victims of precarious employment and probably never

more precarious than at this present moment.

And that is the very purpose of precarious and bogus self employment, it keeps precarious workers entirely reliant and compliant with rouge employers. In journalism, it very reasonably results in self-censorship because even if you

could get an editor to run a piece on the rampant employment abuses in the Irish labour market, it would probably be your last.

Precarious employment works, but not for workers.