Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (IP) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, legal marketing and development.

Still, we feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness, free of charge, about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, in order to achieve this goal, and as part of our continued commitment to you, we have committed ourselves to creating authoritative, trustworthy & distinctive content, which is featured as videos that are posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and feel the positive impact of the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

True to this, it only seems right that we, here at Miletti Law®, continue responding to your concerns and questions and introducing a variety of new topics, which looks to not only educate, but also deliver in a sense that only Miletti Law® can. Accordingly, as the authoritative force in Employment and Labor Law, this blog introduces you to a short video titled “Independent Contractors Protected Like Employees in NYC.” You can access it through the link provided at the end.

By way of backdrop, this is not the first time we are tackling this area of employment and labor law. We have exhaustively covered, in our 7-part blog titled “New York City Major Labor and Employment Laws: An Update” and the longest series we have published so far, many issues related to employment and labor laws in New York City. Specifically, in Part VII of the series, which is titled “Independent Contractors and the Gig Economy under NYC Labor Law,” we extensively discussed independent contractors and what the New York City’s Labor law says about them.

In line with this video, we mentioned that irrespective of the applicable law, gig workers (independent contractors) are entitled to protections under the NYSHRL (New York State Human Rights Law), NYCHRL (New York City Human Rights Law), and FIFA (Freelance Isn’t Free Act) of the New York City just like employees do.

Unfortunately, so much has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. As you would expect, the provision that independent contractors are entitled to similar protections like employees in New York City was passed before the pandemic. For this, among other reasons, we have received frequent questions and concerns as to whether the anti-discriminatory provisions and restrictions under the NYCHRL are still applicable to independent contractors. The answer is “YES!” However, you need more than a “yes” answer for this one and, thus, let us dig a little further.

The NYC Administrative Code section 8-107, introduced as a bill by Councilman Brad Lander in 2019 and later passed into law, outlines a set of unlawful discriminatory practices prohibit under the NYCHRL. Until now, the statute is still active and, therefore, independent contractors can bring forth claims for workplace harassment, discrimination, and/or retaliation under the NYCHRL.

If you are an independent contractor, it is crucial to understand that for the purposes of the statute, you are considered to be somebody who is realistically not an employee, but a natural person working in furtherance of an employer’s business enterprise as an independent contractor. However, you are also treated almost very similar to a typical employee, courtesy of another section of the statute. While it can be viewed as an enhanced standard for independent contractors, this section has three provisions as follows:

  • The employer has to have more than 15 employees;
  • The contract has to last for more than 80 hours in the calendar years; and
  • The contract has to last for at least 90 days in the calendar year, but it does not have to run in consecutive days.

As a PROTIP from Mr. Vinny Miletti Esq., the adroit defense attorney here at Miletti Law®, you should, as an employer, condone no harassment, discrimination, and retaliation of employees irrespective of their classifications of employment. As of now, even independent contractors are treated like employees, particularly if you meet the three provisions highlighted above. After all, all humans should be treated fairly, equitably, and with respect and dignity with or without the law.

Feel welcome to view our video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1EKuUUuwms

As usual, stay tuned for more guidance and counsel and always be #UnusuallyMotivated. In the interim, if there are any questions or comments, please let us know at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.