IT'S not all bad," says Sean (not his real name). "There's a lot more variety in my job than in others - I have to be really flexible so I can stitch together a working week and by now I can turn my hand to most things. And if you don't like whoever you're working with, tomorrow will probably be different anyway. You wouldn't get bored easily as a freelance."

Journalists working on a casual basis are still referred to as freelance, but in fact many now work exclusively on a single newspaper.

"By and large, freelance reporters, working on a shift cover the same stones, as staff reporters; freelance sub editors' work on the same desks, covering the same shifts, as staff sub editors," Sean says.

"Things I don't like include always having to be nice to people, even when they're asking me to do a second shift in one day or something, or sneezing all, over me. I have a freelance's fear of illness - though I've learned not to get sick. I haven't been off sick in seven years.

"It's worse, of course, for young women who want to have families. No female freelance could afford to get pregnant - trying to organise childcare would be a logistical impossibility with night and day work and days on and days off, and having to be available seven days. I wonder if it's unconstitutional?

"Some calculations suggest that a full time casual is up to £15,000 worse off, what with no pension and no lunch allowances, say all stuff staff journalists get.

"It annoys me that concessions like this, which unions and workers fought hard to get, are just being frittered away, and nobody seems to care," he says. "I really love my job, and I wouldn't dream of doing anything else, but all this gets up my nose at times - but it seems to be more and more the norm."