Employees or contractors?

The Employment Court needs to focus on groups of workers who need protection.

Recently a group of strippers in Wellington mounted a campaign claiming to be employees, and not independent contractors. They took this action because they approached Calendar Girls, their employer, asking for better terms and conditions. The response of Calendar Girls was to terminate their contracts – which simply means they were all fired.

Well-established tests give guidance about the difference between an independent contractor and an employee, and in my view these ladies are employees. I cannot see any reason why they could not be employed, as an employee on an hourly rate, along with a bonus or profit-sharing scheme, depending on how popular they were at their work, and so forth.

That would give them all the usual protections of what most of us would call our basic human rights- such as the right not to be fired for simply requesting an improvement in their terms and conditions of work. This claim has been to the Employment Relations Authority before, and the Authority found them to be independent contractors. Much like the Court found Uber drivers to be independent contractors…. there is no accounting for common sense – or the lack thereof.

It’s amazing that in 2023 New Zealand has groups of workers in New Zealand who can legally get fired at will – simply for asking for better terms and conditions.