Freelance Worker Protections Powerfully at Work in New York

This month has seen a dramatic demonstration of the power of Freelance Isn’t Free protections for job-to-job, independent workers. Suing under the first of these laws, its own, in effect since 2017, the City of New York won last week a sizable judgment against French-owned publisher L’Officiel USA. The city’s ordinance provides for doubled assessment of damages claimed by harmed parties. To a mixed-category group of 41 media freelancers the company had left uncompensated, L’Officiel will now pay $275k in total.

Read the full press release, given July 11 by the NWU, on the union site.

If signed soon by Gov. Pritzker, as we hope, Illinois’ Freelance Worker Protection Act will become the first such law to be enacted on behalf of working people throughout a U.S. state.