In late 2010, the New Zealand Parliament passed legislation that offers film industry employers an option to effectively immunize the New Zealand film industry against union activity and employment regulations, by simply insisting on engaging workers as independent contractors, regardless of their real status. The topical story behind this change in employment law reads like a multiscene play on how a powerful American entertainment-industry conglomerate was able to take advantage of a union’s strategic missteps to pressure a small country into not only substantial tax breaks and subsidies, but also a fundamental change to its employment laws. The article tells the story and provides an analysis of how this can happen in a modern democracy.
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