The Regulation of Outwork and the Federal Takeover of Labour Law

Abstract:     
This article examines how the legislative regulation of outwork in Australia has survived the recent federal takeover of labour law. Outwork regulation has survived both the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005 (Cth) - the first component of this federal takeover - and also the second component, in the form of the Independent Contractors Act 2006 (Cth). The article begins by briefly examining the phenomenon of outworkers in the context of state-based regulatory schemes regulating outwork prior to these latest federal legislative developments. The article then analyses in more detail the impact of the federal takeover on legislation regulating outwork, particularly the impact on pre-existing state-based outwork statutory schemes. This analysis highlights the retention of crucial state and federal outworker protections. The preservation of legislative outworker protections is contrasted with the fate of many other forms of workplace regulation. The article concludes that the development of outwork regulation is instructive for future directions in the regulation of both outsourced work and work otherwise performed off-site.

Keywords: labor law, regulation and business law - general, wages, compensation and labor costs - general, nonwage labor costs and benefits, particular labor markets - general, particular labor markets - other, labor-management relations, industrial jurisprudence, capitalist enterprises

JEL Classifications: K31, K20, J30, J32, J49, J40, J53, L63, P12

Accepted Paper Series