How To Get Paid On Time As A Gig Worker And What To Do If You Don’t.
Gig bases industries can be full of both fulfilling and frustrating experiences. The freedom you feel working ‘outside the matrix’ and making your own schedule can be offset by the fact that freelancers are not often protected by local labor laws. If you work as an employee for a company in Ontario (Canada) for example, and they don’t pay you, you can file a complaint with the Labor Ministry. Been there twice, done that. Although it takes time, it’s highly effective. I got paid (penalties inclusive, both times), as my unsuccessfully-manipulative ex-bosses scowled, realizing I was a harder teenager to fleece than most back in the day.
Today I am both a union worker as well as a freelancer in the music industry, and while my union does a pretty decent job of making sure that there are never issues with my paycheques, my freelance job as a Singer and DJ can often be laden with stress. Freelance musicians are not protected by labour unions or committees. Our work requires crazy amounts of networking and unspoken/unwritten contracts that you hope clients will honour out of integrity. And integrity is not something to be easily found in an industry rampant with egomaniacs, opportunists and garden variety sociopaths. I mean, to be honest I consider myself lucky. Since July I’ve been working with the biggest entertainment company in town and a seasoned, respected promoter with a proven track record of excellence. But on my way there I’ve had to deal with a fistful of bullsh*t from flash-in-the-pan venues and promoters who thought that I’d make an easy target. After all, opportunities for female DJs are far fewer than our male counterparts and therefore it makes sense that we are less likely to rock the boat shall things go wrong - like when it’s time to get paid. After all, if a male DJ is not likely to publicly call out abuse of power in the industry for fear of losing work, his female counterpart is pretty much guaranteed to keep silent. And that’s how the rot spreads.
I decided to write this article after months of hearing horror stories of abuse-of-power by some bad actors in our local industry as well as having had a taste of it myself. I think the best way to prevent a bad situation is to be able to spot red flags and/or put some mechanisms in place to equip oneself to deal with things proactively if a business partnership ever turns on you ie. if a client delays or refuses payment.
Disclaimer: I am not a licensed legal professional or a lawyer so please do due diligence and research your case independently of this article shall the need arise for you to take any measures. The advice give in this article is not meant to be taken on in place of legal advice and all opinions expressed in this article are such - my opinions based on my own past experience and research.
Things you can do to protect yourself against clients who can potentially not honour timely payments for your services in a gig-based industry
Prior to engaging, get clients to sign contracts clearly stating (dates included) what is expected from each party.
Always get a 50% deposit upfront when working with new clients / promoters
Keep everything in writing. Do not make any agreements over the phone and if they are made over the phone, get clients to confirm all the agreed-upon information to you in writing (over email or text).
In certain jurisdictions it is legal to record conversations between parties if at least one party is aware of the conversation being recorded. If someone refuses to put things in writing, and it is legal to record the conversation in your jurisdiction, by all means use it as insurance. However, if someone is not willing to put things in writing that should serve as a massive red flag. I personally wouldn’t work for someone like that because it already tells me all I need to know.
If you can, speak to other freelancers who have worked for the perspective client and find out what their track record and rate of satisfaction is.
If you are working for a new venue, look them up on google and check reviews. If a business does not operate aboveboard you will be able to find 1 star reviews warning you of the fact online, sometimes even from ex-employees.
Do not work for promoters / venues with a bad reputation and expect them to treat you any different.
For someone who has never been through the worst of it, these measures may seem excessive, but trust you me, after over a decade in the business and having seen it all, unfortunately there are some rakes I personally never want to step on again, so I have mechanisms and checks in place to make sure that the people I choose to work with are serious, respectful and professional. Anything less is not worth my time and energy. And even then, sometimes it’s not enough.
What avenues do you have if you have worked for a client / promoter / venue who has withheld payment beyond a reasonable amount of time…
First of all, what is a reasonable amount of time? In my industry and most others it is two weeks from the time that the service is rendered. In rare occasions, a reasonable amount of time may be 1 month. These terms are discussed prior to the service and agreed upon by both parties. This is where it becomes important to have a contract or to have ‘receipts’ in the form of text or email.
I usually allow a week grace period where I give the employer a chance to set their own deadline. Example: they tell me I will have my cheque by (set day and time). If the client breaks their promise and there is a reasonable explanation for it (you decide what reasonable is to you), I give them a second chance to set a deadline and time. Keep in mind though, once they pass the original deadline they are already showing you that they do not respect you or your time. Watch out for red flags: one big one is when you’re dealing with a company that has two or more employees who you are contacting about your pay and they start throwing each other under the bus attempting to push responsibility. As in ‘it’s so and so’s fault, etc, he or she is incompetent, etc’. This is HIGHLY unprofessional and shows a fundamental fracture in the operations of the business structure. If they cannot respect their business partners, they sure as hell do not have any respect for you. Another huge red flag is when a representative of the business starts trying to illicit pity and understanding from you by disclosing personal/internal stories about why they haven’t paid you that have nothing to do with you. This is a manipulation tactic to deflect responsibility through forcing intimacy. You, a stranger should suddenly care about their personal affairs. Wait, wasn’t this conversation about where your money is? Don’t fall for it. And last but not least, if you are* friends with the client, do not allow them to use your friendship as a free pass to f*ck around with your money. Real friends, if anything, would make sure you got paid faster, out of respect.
If the client runs past the reasonable time and starts giving you repeated runaround as to why you are not being paid you are in a position where you can take several positions of recourse.
A. Small claims court. After putting in a reasonable amount of effort to recover your funds you can file a lawsuit in small claims court. In Ontario amounts under $35,000 can be recovered in this court. You do not need a lawyer to do this. But in the case of any lawsuit, once you file, the defendant has to be served the suit in person. You can do so a their place of work, residence or any other public space. There has to be proof of service. You can hire a clerk to do this or you can do it yourself. Before you file a lawsuit you can notify the other party that if an amicable resolution is not reached by (set time and date), you will seek other legal avenues of recovering your funds. Most reasonable people at this point will pay you in full because a legal defence can run an individual or a business in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and take years. Nobody will want to go through this process over a small cheque, nor will they want the publicity. Something to keep in mind is, winning a lawsuit does not guarantee you recovery of funds. A court can order the defendant to pay but they can also file bankruptcy and use a myriad of other ways to avoid payment which will cause you to spend more time in court on actual recovery.
B. Take It To the Internet. This method can be highly effective, however it is laden with risks if you do not know how to do this properly. Having someone mess with your livelihood can stir up all kinds of emotions. Emotions are something you want to completely avoid when deciding to expose a business or an individual’s malpractice online. Why? Because if you don’t do this right it can land you in legal trouble and not only. Gig based industries often run in tight communities where everyone knows everyone. While this is to your advantage, because no one wants to be publicly exposed as a scammer, you have to understand that exposing someone online can paint you a loose cannon to other businesses that may want to hire you. This is how predators get away with scamming and abusing gig based workers for years without risking exposure. My take on this is, a business that blacklists you for standing up for yourself in a respectful* and truthful* manner is not a business you want to work with anyway. So it’s time to think about what your values are. Are you a part of the problem or a part of the solution? Everyone has bills to pay, but how far are you willing to bend over? Everyone has their threshold. Then there’s a thing called ‘defamation’. Suing for defamation is just about the only legal recourse a predator has for you calling them out, that’s why you have to be clever about how you do it. Defamation is the action of damaging the good reputation of someone; slander or libel. In Canadian common law jurisdictions, the plaintiff in a defamation claim must prove three elements: (1) that the impugned words were defamatory, in the sense that they would tend to lower the plaintiff’s reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person; (2) that the words were in fact referred to the plaintiff; and (3) that the words were published, meaning that they were communicated to at least one person other than the plaintiff (Grant v Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61, paragraph 28). The caveat is to be defamatory, a statement must be false. Truth is an absolute defence to a defamation claim. And that’s where it becomes so important to keep receipts of your claim and to unemotionally, factually tell nothing but the truth. Mind you, they can still sue you for defamation, but they will never win in the court of law if your statements are proven to be truthful.
In my experience, most reasonable individuals and businesses will promptly settle what they owe you if you let them know that their misconduct will become public within a reasonable amount of time. The last thing people who have predatory personalities want, is risking being exposed to the wider community. Most people want to protect their reputation and sometimes unfortunately you have to remind them what’s at stake if they do not act in integrity and honour their responsibilities to you as a service provider.
C. Sometimes, the means and the stress of recovering what you are owed are not worth the money you are owed. Years ago I won a case and the other party was so incredibly toxic to deal with that I decided to call it a day on collecting damages because I could finally wash my hands of them. Sometimes a victory is simply walking away, having a nice life and never thinking about the person or the business that wronged you again. Especially if* you can’t recover your pay, learn from the experience, and have a successful, fulfilling career. Karma gets everyone at some point or another. In the years that I have been active as an artist I have seen many predators, but I have also seen none of them flourish and have fulfilling careers or businesses because if you are a fundamental jerk, you won’t have success or longevity… definitely not respect. In my case, hospitality and entertainment are people businesses. To thrive those businesses require the goodwill of people. And word gets around. Gig industry workers may not publicly voice who the bad apples are, but under the surface everyone knows their names.
I hope that some of you find this helpful!