As yet more allegations surface about actual monster, Harvey Weinstein, including that he used his fashion connections as a “pipeline” for models, New York State Assemblywoman, Nily Rozic, has introduced legislation to protect New York’s model community from guys like him.
According to the New York Times, that protection would come in the form of an amendment to existing anti-discrimination laws. Announced on Monday, the amendment, if passed, “would extend certain protection to models, putting designers, photographers and retailers (among others) on notice that they would be liable for abuses experienced on their watch.”
As the story notes, models are over-exposed to potentially abusive situations for a variety of reasons — age, grossly antiquated expectations, proximity to gatekeepers of various kinds — but because most are employed as independent contractors in what the story calls a “convoluted employment chain,” it is “unclear where legal liability for job-related sexual harassment lay.”
“Like other independent contractors, including nannies and housekeepers, models have fewer legal protections than workers whose employment contracts are more tightly regulated,” the story notes. And that’s where this amendment would step in, offering a legal support structure to the victims of abuse that have long been suffering in silence.
“The goal is to push back on the silence that has been so pervasive,” said Ms. Rozic, “and find a legislative solution to change the cycle.” And the Assemblywoman is optimistic that this one might pass, because, as she said, “It’s timely, but it’s been timely for a long time.”
You can read more about it at the New York Times.
