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Abstract:
Our laws - particularly the doctrines developed in the equitable jurisdiction - which privilege property owners have created expectations that employers of workers become the owners of the intellectual capital produced by labour. Presumptions in our intellectual property laws, and the post-contractual extension of the employee's duty of good faith and fidelity have strengthened employers' capacity to retain human capital within the firm. At times of womb-to-tomb employment patterns, such laws may have been defensible. But the world has changed. This paper argues that in the deregulated, flexible workplaces encouraged by the Workplace Relations reforms, workers bargain not for job security, but for employability, i.e., the opportunity to acquire skills, experience and contacts which will enhance prospects for continued employment market participation. If this bargain is to be upheld by law, we need to reexamine legal attitudes to the ownership of human capital.

Abstract:
Finding an acceptable and workable balance between paid work and family commitments "has been, and will continue to be, one of the central tasks for employment law." For women, finding this balance is also fundamental to the quest for gender equality in work. In this paper, prompted by a number of recent cases, we examine how two alternative regulatory approaches in employment law can be - and have been - used in Australia to enforce or encourage work practices that are family-friendly and hence assist in achieving the two related goals of a more acceptable work-family balance and gender equality in work. On the one hand are public equality laws, and on the other private contract law.

The claimants in the cases we consider used these two approaches to make claims for particular family-friendly provisions, specifically unpaid maternity leave and the right to work part-time hours after maternity leave. These are only two particular benefits, but we consider these as examples of family-friendly practices more generally and attempt to draw implications for a wider range of practices. While Australian anti-discrimination legislation is primarily reactive and does not impose any positive duty on employers, by characterising practices that are contrary to work-family balance as discriminatory (on the basis of sex or pregnancy), workers in these cases had some success in compelling family-friendly practices. Further the cases show that human resource policies and manuals that express aspirations about commitments to work-life balance and family-friendly practices can be contractually enforceable in Australia.

discrimination, work-family, work-life, family-friendly, employment, contract, gender equality, mutual trust and confidence

Abstract:
The plight of employees who lose accrued entitlements when their corporate employers collapse is a matter of continuing political and industrial interest. After the National Textiles collapse in January 2000, the Howard government introduced the Employee Entitlements Support Scheme to provide a taxpayer-funded, minimum safety net to cushion employees from the worst effects of employer insolvency. Just prior to the 2001 federal election, a more generous General Employee Entitlement Redundancy Scheme was introduced. These are administrative solutions, susceptible to the fickle winds of political expediency. There have been many calls for longer term legislative solutions - through industry-wide or national insurance or guarantee-fund schemes. This article explores a further alternative: using existing long-standing commercial law principles and practices to bargain for security. If employee representatives were to examine the principles of corporate law, and adopt the practices of corporate financiers, they might bargain more effectively for better protection than may be offered long term by a welfare-based safety net.

Abstract:
At the federal level, the year 2001 saw much legislative activity in the form of bills, debates, revisions and rejections - but very little progress for the government's 'third wave' industrial reform program. Apart from some changes to the unfair dismissals regime, much important legislation was left on the table when Parliament rose before the November federal election. Around the states, small but important changes to leave entitlements and other matters suggest some fine-tuning to ensure the most vulnerable workers are protected, but generally indicate stability in state industrial regimes.

Abstract:
Despite the promise of cataclysmic change, 2003 saw very few, and very moderate reforms to industrial laws. The great debates about a unitary industrial relations system, greater legal discipline for the building and construction industry, paid maternity leave, compulsory individual contracts in the higher education sectorleft no lasting footprints in 2003. The most significant reform, achieved at the very end of the year, was the enactment of more safety net protection for Victorian workers. Otherwise, legislative change represented small incremental steps. This review notes the highlights from the years debates, and explains the changes that were actually introduced.

Abstract:
The federal government finally secured passage of some of its workplace relations amendments in 2004 - the transmission of business provisions for certified agreements, introduction of interim section 127 orders and some increased penalties for bad behaviour - and it dealt promptly with the Electrolux crisis created by the High Court in September. More amendments are clearly on the way. This report notes bills remaining on the agenda at the close of Parliamentary business in December. We also review the new Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cwlth), and note some state developments.

Abstract:
Legislation proposed and passed in 2002 continued to demonstrate the close alliance between law and politics in this field. While the Federal government pressed on with its Workplace Relations third wave (the Registration and Accountability of Organisations legislation being its only significant success), recently elected Labor governments moved in contrary directions. The Gallop Labor government's new Western Australian industrial laws feature in this report, and there is also a brief review of the Rann government's commissioned review of South Australia's industrial law. New South Wales introduced some protective measures for outworkers - and also restricted access to unfair contracts review to "high flyers".