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Abstract:
This paper analyses the interaction between labour law and social security law for two categories of work-life situation: workers with family responsibilities (WFR) and jobseekers. The categories of WFR and jobseeker each represent an emblematic spot on the spectrum of interaction between labour law and social security law, one primarily from labour law and the other from social security law, but with intersecting concepts either way. The central argument made in this chapter is that, although WFR are more transparently subject to a combination of laws in the labour and social security fields, it is jobseekers who are governed by a more integrated set of regulations. The complicating factor, however, is that this greater regulatory streamlining for jobseekers should not be taken to suggest that they are treated in a more humanistic way; for as we demonstrate, market principles are equally paramount in the regulation of both the WFR and jobseeker life-situations. Paradoxically, despite the apparent newness of regulation theory, it is the established tradition of integration between law and policy institutions in the social security system which determines the greater sophistication of jobseeker regulation. Though more clearly subjected to pressure and influence from non-traditional regulatory areas, labour law still suffers from a relative isolationism, which curtails legal and other rules from reaching out to integrate with broader factors bearing upon the social and life status of WFR.

Labor law, social security, regulatory theory

Abstract:
Analyses of the labour-social policy nexus are predominantly cross-national and regional in approach. Comparisons of individual policy domains within nations are less common. This paper is an intra-national comparative analysis of jobseekers and workers with family responsibilities in Australia, focusing on the relationship between labour law and social security law in each domain. The comparison demonstrates that cross-national comparativism can benefit from insights provided by intra-national approaches. Most notably, intra-nationalism sheds different light on the relative integrative potential of labour and social policies. It also elevates the role of the law and of moral values in the process of marketisation.

comparative social policy and industrial relations, workers with family responsibilities, jobseekers, labour-social policy nexus

Abstract:
This article presents findings from a larger project examining the legal regulation of information in Australian labor markets. The project analyzes the legal rights and obligations of employers, employees, job applicants, trade unions, and others in relation to the collection, use and dissemination of information in the employment context. It surveys the Australian situation as part of an international study commissioned by the editors of the Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal.

An earlier article produced as part of this project examined the Australian legal rules pertaining to the disclosure of information about employees and job applicants to employers and prospective employers. The types of scenarios canvassed included, for example, information from a job applicant's previous employer (eg, a work reference), information from the employee herself or himself (eg, that she is pregnant or has a disability), information from a government authority (eg, of a criminal record), information from a private investigation service, and information from a credit provider.

This second article examines the legal regulation of information that employers and prospective employers are required to disclose to their employees and relevant trade unions, either automatically or upon request. Australian law places obligations on employers to provide various types of information relating to, for example, agreement-making under industrial relations legislation, industrial action engaged in during the process of negotiating an agreement, termination of employment, occupational health and safety matters, discrimination, harassment and equal opportunity policies and programs, and miscellaneous matters including parental and adoption leave. The article surveys the raft of disparate statutory schemes and common law actions regulating these issues.

Abstract:
Discrimination jurisdictions in Australia emphasise informal dispute resolution. Their complaint-handling procedures focus on the resolution of complaints through confidential mechanisms of "investigation" and "conciliation," rather than adjudication. Such processes of informalism are said to provide many advantages over the formal court system. These include reduced legal costs, a faster resolution of the dispute, and the provision of a non-adversarial forum, with its promise of more flexible outcomes and the potential to minimise damage caused to longer term relationships between the parties involved in the conflict.

It is argued in this article that contrary to much of the rhetoric of informal dispute resolution, "investigation" and "conciliation" in the New South Wales discrimination jurisdiction contain traces of the Western adversarial tradition. The article draws on empirical data collected from a group of case files held by the New South Wales Board. The article seeks to show how adversarial ideologies, and in particular the centrality accorded to procedural fairness, and the construction of the parties as formally equal individuals who "drive" the dispute resolution processes to a conclusion, appear to be present, in a shadow form, in the handling of discrimination complaints by the Anti-Discrimination Board of New South Wales.

Given that informalism was adopted in discrimination jurisdictions out of a recognition that formalism, with its adversarial culture, was inappropriate in this area of law, an appearance of the adversarial ideal is a worrying, although not new observation. This article builds on earlier scholarship examining a number of Australian discrimination jurisdictions in the mid 1980s.

The article commences by profiling the identifying characteristics of the Western adversarial form of litigation. Following this, the New South Wales statutory provisions about investigation and conciliation are examined. This material reveals the relatively open-textured character of these legal rules. The article moves on to discuss other constraints on how the Board goes about fulfilling its statutory tasks to conduct investigation and conciliation. These include decisions of the Federal Court about the role of conciliators in a conciliation conference, the presence of lawyers in the complaint-handling processes, and funding levels. The article then draws on the empirical material to unpack the processes of investigation and conciliation. It does this through adopting two foci: first, what the Board does (and does not do) and secondly, the roles of the parties in these processes.

complaint, handling, discrimination, New South Wales