This holiday season, New Yorkers living in the gig economy were given reason for optimism: the NY City Council introduced a bill proposing a set of rights for freelance workers. Dubbed “Freelance Isn’t Free Act,” and introduced by Council Member Brad Lander, this act would give freelance workers access to “protections now enjoyed by regular employees.”
Lydia DePillis, writing for the Washington Post, explains that the bill “would require all employers to put contracts in writing, impose civil and criminal penalties for taking longer than 30 days to deliver payments, and award double damages plus attorneys fees to contractors who’ve been stiffed.”
She continues, explaining that members of the independent economy have “been getting more vocal in recent years.”
Lander got the idea for the bill from the Freelancer’s Union, which now claims 280,000 members (joining is free; the 20-year-old organization funds itself through a for-profit arm that provides insurance benefits). In a survey, 70 percent of members said they lost some money on account of delinquent clients.
“It’s almost become something that people view as the price of doing business, just accepting that they won’t get paid,” says Sara Horowitz, the Freelancers Union’s founder and director. “It’s really crazy, because it’s a lot of money, and it’s really bad practice for companies to think they can do this.”
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The bill’s list of endorsers includes many of the city’s coworking spaces and tech schools like General Assembly. It also includes Make the Road New York, which works mostly with the city’s low-income Hispanic population. Non-payment is as much of a problem for day laborers who get picked up for construction jobs, and often aren’t paid what they’re promised. Then there’s the National Domestic Workers Alliance, whose housekeepers and nannies sometimes work on contract and don’t have the resources to sue when employers don’t hold up their end of the deal.
For the full article, visit the Washington Post.
Photo via Washington Post, by flickr user @eekim, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
