From Wellington to Quebec: Attracting Hollywood and Regulating Cultural Workers

Abstract

This paper compares and contrasts two instances of labour unrest in the film industry: the “Hobbit Law” in New Zealand and the “Spiderwick Case” in Quebec (Canada). In comparing these cases, we combine legal analysis and cultural labour analysis to outline and discuss the origins of each conflict, which involved local unions, cultural workers and governments, as well as workers and producers ‘flown in’ from Hollywood. In each case, the uncertainty that characterizes the employment relationships of local film workers sparks a chain of events that then leads to legislative and political responses and outcomes for those workers and for organizations representing them. Our analysis is particularly attendant to the vastly different legislative outcomes that are possible in conditions of labour market uncertainty.