A new local law will now explicitly protect freelance workers and independent contractors from discrimination and harassment. The bill, known as Intro. 136, passed Thursday and helps to clarify which workers are protected by the preexisting City Human Rights Law. Most significantly, the legislation extends that law’s anti-discrimination protections to explicitly cover freelancers, closing an unfortunate loophole that left freelancers with no real recourse to address discrimination. (It comes about five years after a similar law extended harassment and civil rights protections to unpaid interns in the city.)
City Council Member Brad Lander, one of the sponsors of the new bill, celebrated its passage with members of the Freelancers Union this morning in Brooklyn. Here’s a clip of one freelancer sharing her personal experience of discrimination at that rally:
The bill is not the first piece of recent legislation aimed at helping the city’s freelance population. A measure known as the Freelance Isn’t Free Act — also introduced by Lander — went into effect in 2017 to protect freelancers from all-too-common wage theft. One of the most significant provisions of that bill was that freelancers must be paid in full for work worth $800 or more within 30 days (or by another date established in writing). Those protections were some of the first of their kind in the country, according to the New York Times.
Both pieces of legislation are aimed at addressing the precarious positions of freelancers and independent contractors, who comprise a particularly significant portion of the workforce in media and entertainment. ("One in three New York City workers is freelancing, including 61% of workers in media and entertainment sectors,” said Caitlin Pearce, Executive Director of Freelancers Union.)
In a statement, Lander celebrated the new legislation. “Corporations have shifted to rely more and more on independent contractors and freelancers,” he stated. “But these workers have been cut out of fundamental protections like the right to be free from harassment and discrimination in their work. Together with workers, and in partnership with Freelancers Union, we are clawing back the rights and expanding protections that all workers deserve. Closing the loophole that left independent contractors without sufficient recourse for discrimination or harassment builds on the Council’s ambitious work to win protections for gig-economy workers.”
