Reclaim Your Worker Rights

  • Made By CUP With:
  • Community Partners
  • Tags:
  • Labor

A fold-out poster that explains employee tax misclassification and its impact on benefits, like Social Security and unemployment compensation.

The project team meets to discuss the fold-out poster at an early meeting.


What’s the difference between an independent contractor and an employee? And does it really matter? Getting misclassified as an independent contractor could mean paying almost double in taxes and losing benefits you’re entitled to, like Social Security, workers' compensation, and unemployment compensation.

To help workers understand how to avoid misclassification, Philadelphia Legal Assistance’s Taxpayer Support Clinic collaborated with CUP and designers Mike Tully and Peter Gamlen to create Reclaim Your Worker Rights. The fold-out poster breaks down different tax forms for employees and independent contractors and explains how to avoid misclassification. It also shows workers how to fight back if they’ve been misclassified, and how to get support to claim the benefits they deserve.

Philadelphia Legal Assistance is distributing Reclaim Your Worker Rights to thousands of low-income workers locally through their clients and at outreach events. They are also distributing the tool nationally through other Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites, other social service and legal assistance providers, and their network of Low Income Taxpayer Clinics.

Philadelphia Legal Assistance’s clients share feedback on a design draft.
The project team reviews an early layout of the project.

Check out the Project

The cover and spread from Reclaim Your Worker Rights.

Download a Free Copy

Click here to download

Project Collaborators

Center For Urban Pedagogy

Clair Beltran
Sucharitha Yelimeli

Community Partner

Philadelphia Legal Assistance-Taxpayer Support Clinic


Lazlo Beh
Omeed Firouzi
Anthony Marqusee


Special Thanks

William Cobb, Tianna Gaines-Turner, Carolyn Gil, Tepi Karl-Ennis, Barbara Kigozi, Gail Logan, Jessica Templeton, Angela Vogel, and Maya Sari Ahmed

Product Details

8″ × 11″ color pamphlet; unfolds to 32″ × 22″ poster

Funding Support

Support for this project was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.