Christopher, who is a lecturer, at the local polytechnic, WestTec is writing a textbook. Marama, his manager, has agreed that he can contract out all the assignment marking in his courses if he makes all the arrangements. She also says that whoever Christopher arranges to cover the marking must attend the standard WestTec three hour marking training session and she tells him that WestTec is unable to provide office space for contract markers.

Christopher approaches Nicola and asks if she would be interested in doing some contract marking of student assignments at a set rate of $5.00 per item. Nicola accepts Christophers offer and attends the three-hour marking session at WestTec.

Nicola soon finds that marking is taking her much longer than she anticipated. She is spending upwards of an hour each on some student assignments and she is earning much less than the minimum wage. Having recently marked an assignment that dealt with the homeworker test in the Employment Relations Act 2000, she is wondering if she might be able to make a case that she is a homeworker and therefore an employee of WestTecs and entitled to the minimum wage.