Invisible Consequences: The Health Hazards of "Women's Work" in New Zealand

Abstract

Gordon Anderson has written extensively on the changes in New Zealand's labour laws that have occurred since the late 1960s, and the consequences of these changes for workers. This period saw the narrowing and individualising of work health and safety, the separation of health and safety from other areas of employment relations and the workers' compensation functions of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) scheme. This article explores one of the largely invisible consequences of these shifts, arguing that gaps have emerged between these areas of law, and these gaps fall disproportionately over the types of work that women typically perform. This article outlines the current gaps in the law and identifies the areas in need of reform.

The mechanism of prosperity: New Zealand Association of Scientists 1954–73

“…NZAS made a major contribution to the Wellington Science Fairs from their inception [91]. Following the initiative of Prof L H (Lindsay) Briggs in starting the Auckland Science Fairs in 1960, the Wellington Science Teachers Association started the Wellington one in 1964, and Prof James Duncan, who became President of NZAS, became its Chairman, while its Organising Secretary for many years, who became Treasurer for NZAS from 1967 for many years afterwards also, was Phil Alve.…”

“…At the third Wellington Science Fair, Prof Duncan in his Chairman's speech expressed a wish to build to a nationwide science fair, and this did eventuate, but not until 1977, when Philips (NZ) joined with Kiwanis Clubs of NZ, regional branches of which had sponsored some regional fairs, to ask Prof Duncan to Chair the Consultative Committee, which set up the organisation and management structure for it [93].…”

50 years on from the Woodhouse Report

“…A fuller analysis of the gaps in the cover of chronic work-related illness is provided in other papers by the author (see Duncan, 2016Duncan, , 2017Duncan, , 2018Duncan, , 2019, but one of the most significant gaps is work stress-related illness. Although section 30 provides cover for 'gradual process, disease or infection' , it excludes any conditions related to 'nonphysical stress' (s30(5)(a)).…”

“…Work will continue to change, with the types of health problems facing New Zealand workers and the causal relationships between work and health becoming more complex and interrelated. As argued in other papers, the best response to increasing factual complexity in the relationships between work and health is clarity in legal principle (Duncan, 2019). Reforms to the workers' compensation functions of the ACC scheme need to start with a clear set of principles, recognising the different context of work-related health problems, the rights of workers to compensation, the links between compensation and prevention activities, and the role of the ACC scheme in improving work health and safety.…”