Gothamist: A day after it sailed through committee, a bill to protect New York City's freelancers from wage theft unanimously passed the City Council, setting the stage for Mayor Bill de Blasio to sign it into law.
The Freelance Isn't Free Act, which was first put up for consideration this past spring, creates harsh penalties for employers who delay or deny payment for freelancers and sets a strict window within which freelancers must be paid for their services.
"The Freelance Isn't Free Act will make sure all workers can get paid for their work, on-time and in full," said Council Member and lead sponsor Brad Lander.
2 comments:
This law is definitely going to present some challenges and pushback from employers, but I definitely think it's a necessary step towards it being more realistic to freelance in NYC. I was unaware that so many freelancers were reporting that they were having problems with receiving payments in full and on time, and I can see that how could be incredibly straining and exhausting for freelance designers in NYC who are paying an astronomically high cost of living and not receiving a contractual fee that necessarily matches the scale of that cost of living. It'll be interesting to see if this truly helps freelancers ensure that they will be paid in a timely manner moving forward. It should also be interesting to see if this ends up setting a precedent for other major cities to pass a similar law in the future. Laws like this could end up helping to ease the struggle of being a theatrical artist in the 21st century.
This seems like a really good act. I’ve heard a lot of stories about people working freelance not getting paid, not getting paid as quickly as they should, or having to put in a lot of effort after they’ve finished a job to get whoever hired them to actually pay them. Whether or not someone gets paid of their work shouldn’t have to do with whether or not they work for a person/ company or if they are freelance. There is part of me that is surprised that this act isn’t a law already, since it seems obvious that people should have to pay freelance workers they hire in a timely fashion. There is also part of me that is sad that this law is necessary, since it only has to exist because employers haven’t been respecting the work of freelance workers. I hope this act pases, becomes sucessful at its goal, and inspires more places to create similar laws to actually protect the rights of freelance workers.
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