The places of law in a self-employed person's wellbeing at work

Emma Babbage

doi:10.25918/thesis.284

As individuals and organisations enter the post-COVID world, ways to wellbeing remain elusive. Workplace illness, injury and death continue to pervade the world of work. While the survival rates of small business have dropped, the rate of start-ups has grown. Whether a self-employed person in small business reaches to law in the kit of her flotation devices to not only survive – but thrive – at work is a question that is unlikely to be answered within the arena of the courts in Australia. Research about the place of law in a self-employed person’s wellbeing at work is urgently needed to contribute to doctrinal and experiential knowledge. This research aims to explore that place. This research adopts Davies’ (2017) conceptualisation of law as plural material as seen through an expansive view not only of liability, but also the everyday practice of law and legal consciousness. This research is situated in the Northern Rivers region of far north-east New South Wales (‘NSW’), Australia because of the prevalence of entrepreneurship there and includes vignettes from interviews with 21 self-employed persons in that locale. Under s 19(5) of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), which is the enactment of the Model Work Health and Safety Act 2010 in NSW, a self-employed person owes herself the primary duty of self-care, in which she ‘must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, his or her own health and safety while at work’. This research asks how self-employed participants plurally materialise the primary duty of self-care in their wellbeing at work. This research adopts Olson’s (2014) methodology of legal narratology to juxtapose the participants’ vignettes with the State law. The juxtaposition materialises three strands of legal argument of: (1) an outer cloak of liability for ‘health’ (s 19(5)) and/or ‘welfare’ (s 19(3)(e)) that at least partially covers the signified of participant self-employed persons’ wellbeing; (2) an inner slip of an intention for ‘welfare’ (ss 3(1)(a), 3(2) and long title) materialised through participants’ everyday practice of congruent risk management for ‘health and safety’ (s 19(5)) and wellbeing and/or promoting wellbeing as risk management (Tooma 2020) for ‘health and safety’ (s 19(5)); and (3) a lining of a legal consciousness of the legal self-regulation of wellbeing materialised through participants’ self-recognition of their own desires. Just as clothing signifies place, these plural materialisations of law signify the places of law in a self-employed person’s wellbeing at work.

The places of law in a self-employed person's wellbeing at work

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The places of law in a self-employed person's wellbeing at work

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