New NYC Law Protects Freelancers From 'Sub-Human' Treatment

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NY — Carolina Salas considers herself lucky. Salas, a marketing freelancer, has the time and the wherewithal, she says, to fight in court against her former clients. The pair of dentists cheated her out of $3,500 she was owed for freelance marketing work she did for them over a six-week period this year, she says.

Most freelancers, Salas says, can't spare the time off from the hustle, even when their employers, or clients, refuse to give them a good chunk of money for a project they've completed. Because Salas was on a year-long medical leave for a pinched sciatic nerve, and she had saved up for a few years of freelance work, she was able to take her clients to small claims court.

So far, it has cost her $1,500 in legal fees and dozens of hours of going through and gathering texts and emails with her clients to prove that they had an agreement to pay her for the work she did.

Until the mayor signs a bill that unanimously passed City Council last week giving freelancers more protection under city law, freelancers like Salas who are stiffed by their employers are penalized by the law for not having a written contract with their clients. The law, known as the Freelance Isn't Free Act, would penalize the client or employer for not having a written contract with their freelancer.

Salas first knew she wanted to go to small claims court when she received an invoice dispute letter from her clients saying she didn't do exactly the work they wanted her to do, and so they weren't going to pay her. Considering it was a friend who had asked her for the work in the first place, and Salas had offered her a 50 percent discount on her hourly rate, Salas was shocked.

"Getting a lawyer to serve the freelancer with an invoice dispute letter and see if you can scare them away, for sure, is strategy number one of employers," Salas told Patch. "It's disturbing that somebody could just say, 'Oh, you know what? We never agreed to that,' and then you have to pull up everything to prove them wrong. My word is not in favor against theirs in the court of law."

The new bill, which will be reviewed by the mayor in 180 days, would set new requirements and punishments for clients or employers of freelancers in the city which would include paying freelancers within 30 days after he or she renders services and writing a contract for any freelance work over $800 within a four-month period. A breach of these requirements by employers would be punishable by hefty fines. Freelancers who prove their case against an employer would be entitled to double the amount they were supposed to be paid, in damages. For example, Carolina says she was stiffed out of $3,500, so she'd theoretically be paid $7,000 in damages.

"I told Carolina up front the best thing to have is a written agreement, but they didn't really have that, because she was working for a friend," Bill van Zyverden, an attorney consulting Salas, told Patch. "Now she's going to have to prove she had a contract based on emails and texts and performance and billing rather than having this neat little contract in writing."

When asked if he supports the freelancer bill, van Zyverden said, "Absolutely. I think freelancers should have a contract, only because we as a species don't seem to trust each other."

Salas' next small claims court date was pushed to sometime in January, she said. She won't see any money for at least another two months.

Despite the fact that she is fighting over what some would consider to be a relatively small check, Salas said she is in court on principal, to publicize how freelancers are at a disadvantage with the law.

"It seems like people treat freelancers as work for hire, but they also treat us as disposable humans," Salas said. "There's this devaluation of our humanity, like she doesn't need healthcare, she doesn't have to get paid on time because she's not essentially part of the team. We are like sub-human."

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