Regulating the Irregular: Accident Compensation Law and Policy - A Case Study of 'Contact' Shearing Employers in the New Zealand Wool Industry

Abstract

On-going developments continue to effect the provision of ACC for those in the rural workforce, particularly the levying of shearing contractors in the wool industry. Atypical high wage transaction costs for 'contract employers' problematise the non-wage cost of individual employers' liability levies. Modem relations of labour between shearing contractors and their workers are largely informal. The fluidity of workers entering and exiting the industry is one part of the fluidity, as it is for contractors entering and exiting the industry. This paper focuses on exposing these contradictions to collapse the assumption of a binary contractual relationship between shearing industry parties in the provision of 'workers' compensation' in woolshed relations.