Employment Protection and Employment Promotion: The Contested Terrain of Australian Labour Law
20 Pages Posted: 26 Feb 2001
Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of the inter-relationship between employment promotion policies in Australia and labour law. Surveying recent trends in policy, it identifies the role that law has played in employment promotion in the past twenty years. It then examines the relationship between these recent developments and labour law's 'traditional' function of protecting people at work. The paper argues that both historically and currently Australian labour law has not been restricted to this 'traditional' function but has also been a part of overall economic policy regulating labour markets. The tension between 'protection' and wider economic imperatives represents the contested terrain of Australian labour law. The paper concludes by suggesting that the new challenge for labour law is to open up the discipline to include consideration of those wider laws that impact on people who are reliant upon their labour for a living, regardless of their position in the labour market.
Keywords: employment, protection, promotion, Australia, labour law, contested
JEL Classification: K31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation