Most sex workers in businesses work as independent contractors – the business doesn’t pay their PAYE tax for them, and doesn’t provide sick leave, annual leave or other benefits you get when you’re officially an “employee”.

In fact, lots of sex workers really are employees, without realising it. The law on whether someone is a contractor or employee says that you have to look at each case and see what’s really happening in the relationship. Just because the employer says that you’re a contractor and not an employee, that doesn’t mean that legally you’re not an employee. What’s important is how close to the heart of the business your work is.

Employees have a lot more rights than contractors. For more information on how to tell if you’re an employee or a contractor, see “When you’re not an ‘employee’: Differences between employees, contractors and volunteers” in this chapter.

But even if you really are an independent contractor – or if your boss thinks you are – you have lots of workers’ rights that your boss is supposed to respect.

If you are an independent contractor to a brothel, you are making what is supposed to be a free and equal agreement with a brothel operator that is good for both of you.

You have the right to negotiate the contract to include things that are important to you. You also have the right to keep a copy of the written contract.

In reality, often the brothel operator has, or seems to have, more power than the sex worker. If you want to even up the balance, you can get legal advice on the contract you are being asked to sign from:

• the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC)
• a Community Law Centre
• a lawyer.

It’s common for brothel operators to include in contracts a system of fines for things like turning up late or wearing the wrong clothes. If these fines are unreasonable and more like a punishment than about the true cost to the business of what you’re doing, then your boss might not be able to get them enforced if you took your boss to court. Someone from the Prostitutes Collective can help you negotiate a better contract.

Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, Prostitution Reform Act 2003, ss 8–10

Even if you’re an independent contractor and not an employee, the brothel operator has to make sure you have a safe workplace.

Operators have to make sure you and your clients follow safer sex practices. They also have to make sure everything else about the workplace is safe for you.

For more information, see the chapter “Employment conditions and protections”, under “Health and safety protections”.

Prostitution Reform Act 2013, s 17; Case: [2012] NZHC 2859

Even if you’re an independent contractor and not an employee, you always have the right to give, refuse or take back consent to any kind of sex. It doesn’t matter what your contract says about this – your right to consent is stronger than any other law.

If someone is making you do something you don’t want to do, you can get help from:

• the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC)
• the police, or
• a Community Law Centre.

An employer can’t dock your pay unless it’s in your employment contract, and they have to let you know every time they do it. For more information, see the chapter “Employment conditions and protections”, under “Payment of wages: When and how”.

Employment Relations Act 2000, s 64

You must have a written employment agreement and your employer must give you a copy of it if you ask for one.

You have all the health and safety rights that are explained in the section above “Health and safety rights at work”