Labour Transparency Code

The Labour Transparency Code establishes minimum expectations for visibility and accountability in agricultural and horticultural labour supply chains.

Its purpose is to help supply chains become transparent, traceable and accountable in ways that protect workers, support compliant businesses and strengthen trust in New Zealand agricultural exports.

The Code is the first layer of the wider Labour Transparency Framework: it sets the outcomes, while the framework describes the infrastructure, assurance and adoption layers needed to make those outcomes practical.

Principles

Transparency

Relevant labour supply relationships should be visible to the relevant supply-chain participants. Labour Supply Chains Are Not Linear explains why visibility must include the relationships around a worker, not only the immediate employer.

Accountability

Every worker should be clearly linked to a legally responsible employer. See Labour Opacity Is a Structural Risk for why unclear responsibility expands risk.

Attribution

Labour participation should be traceable to specific worksites and supply-chain actors. Product Traceability Is Mature. Workforce Traceability Is Not. sets out the central proposition behind this rule.

Proportional assurance

Transparent systems should support risk-based assurance and avoid unnecessary burden on compliant operators. Assurance Must Be Proportionate develops this principle in more detail.

Technology neutrality

The Code defines outcomes. It does not mandate a platform, vendor or technical architecture.

Scope

The Code is intended for growers and producers, labour providers and contractors, labour-hire businesses, and—where relevant—processors and exporters participating in agricultural and horticultural supply chains.

Next: Read the ten rules or learn how to use the Code.

Related reading

• Transparency Must Work for Workers — the worker-centred test for transparency systems.
• Share Claims, Not Copies — how to support verification without unnecessary data replication.
• Workforce Traceability Is Governance Infrastructure — how the Code can become part of normal industry practice.