A Twinsburg, Ohio man received a statement in the mail for his daughter’s student loan. And then another. And another. And another. The lender sent him 55,000 identical letters filling 79 bins at the post office.

Even better, all of the statements were wrong. They provided an incorrect payment amount.

A recent change to New York City’s Human Rights Law (NYCHRL) doesn’t need to be explained 55,000 times. But it does need to be explained once. Correctly.

Effective January 11, 2020, the protections under the NYCHRL now apply to independent contractors, including freelancers. That means, under NYC law:

• It is now unlawful to discriminate, harass, or retaliate against an independent contractor, based on any protected class;
• Businesses must provide reasonable accommodations, including for needs related to pregnancy, lactation, religious observances, sexual offenses, or stalking;
• Businesses must engage in a “cooperative dialogue” with any contractor seeking an accommodation and must provide a written determination of any accommodation that was granted or denied;
• Businesses must follow the Fair Chance Act requirements before taking any adverse action based on the results of a criminal background check, including providing a written Artcile 23-A analysis;
• Businesses cannot inquire about salary history;
• Businesses cannot perform a credit check (maybe; this is unclear); and
• Businesses may need to provide sexual harassment training to contractors, depending on the number of hours worked.

For those keeping score at home, the change is to Section 8-107(23) of the NYCHRL. This one little sentence does all the work: “The protections of this chapter relating to employees apply to interns, freelancers and independent contractors.” Boom!

The law applies to businesses in New York City that had four or more workers, including independent contractors, at any time in the previous 12 months.

The law does not apply to wage and hour issues like minimum wage and overtime payments, and the law does not change the test for determining whether someone is an independent contractor or an employee.

The Commission has published some additional guidance on how this will work, especially the sexual harassment training part. You can read it online. Thankfully, the Commission didn’t send it 55,000 times to every business in the mail.

© 2020 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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