copyright Archive

Call to Action on Independent Contractor Issue

– July 18, 2010

Globe Editorial & Call to Action on Independent Contractor Issue

Artists Under the Dome

Click to learn more!

7/17/10

Greetings All,

The end of the Legislative session is July 31st. There is a very short time frame to pass corrective legislation to fix the unintended consequences from the 2004 Independent Contractor law impacting freelancers and artists of all disciplines.

(7/17/10) Saturday’s Boston Globe Editorial is a great call to action:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/07/17/amend_law_to_aid_freelancers/

Please take the time to contact the Governor, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House and your state representative and state senator on this issue. I would say to email them over the weekend if you can and to call them on Monday/Tuesday.

Link to background information on the issue, key talking points, example text, how to contact the key MA elected officials, and more:

http://www.artistsunderthedome.org/MAindependent_contractor.html

It is important to stress the following: HB4748 needs to be amended to fix the issues impacting freelancers and artists of all disciplines and it needs to be done this legislative session. Urge them to work with the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition to craft corrective legislative language (note MALC already gave legislative language options that would fix the issue!).

Please also forward this call to action to as many MA residents as you can. We need to keep the pressure on.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Bitetti

Artist
Co-founder of www.artistsunderthedome.org
Co-founder of the Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition

PS: Please help us build our listserv- ask other artists of all disciplines and those who care about us to join the artistsunderthedome.org’s listserve!
http://www.artistsunderthedome.org/contact.html


  • Share/Bookmark

Fix the Massachusetts Freelancer Law!

– January 17, 2010

care2 logo

Fix the Massachusetts Freelancer Law!

Are you an independent contractor? Do you know that as an artist who agrees to “work-for-hire”, you lose all copyright to your work? In Massachusetts it is very difficult to work as an independent contractor. Your client is almost always required to hire you as an “employee”. Not only does this automatically give your employer the copyright to your creative work, taxes will be withheld and you will be reported as a W-2 employee. This means you will not be able to deduct work related expenses at your studio, among a number of tax “gotchas” that artists unfairly endure.

You can do something NOW. Sign the Care2 petition, Fix the Massachusetts Freelancer Law, then pass the word along to your friends.

And, for extra credit, you can show up at the State House, Jan. 27th in Room A2 at 10:30 to give testimony. (Sign-in by 10am if you want to give verbal testimony.  Testimony is taken in order of signing-in.)

You can also send or drop off written testimony.  Send your testimony to Ryan.Whalen@state.ma.us.

Then thank yourself!

Note: In addition to signing this petition, you may also contact the chairs of the committee directly (State Senator Thomas McGee, 617-722-1350, Thomas.McGee@state.ma.us and Representative Cheryl Coakley-Rivera, 617-722-2014, Rep.CherylCoakley-Rivera@Hou.State.MA.US).

  • Share/Bookmark

© 2009-2010 Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright