Labour Law Seminar Series
These free public seminars are intended to be of interest to a wide audience including academics, members of the legal profession, and those engaged in the day to day business of industrial relations and/or human resource management. They provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of preliminary research results and to that end are designed both to be informative and to engender critical discussion and debate. The seminars are usually held at lunchtime and tea and coffee is provided, so RSVPs to the Centre Administrator are encouraged.
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| 3 December |
Change and Evolution in New Zealand Employment Law A year after the election of a National-led Government there have been relatively few legislative changes to Labour’s Employment Relations Act. A recent speech by the Prime Minister to the Council of Trade Unions Conference indicated that while the government is not ruling out further changes “they’re not a driving priority”. Meanwhile the good faith obligations introduced by labour in 2000 have continued to evolve and continue to be “road tested” in a number of court cases and industrial disputes. This seminar will first discuss why National has not introduced significant reforms and consider what direction its proposed reforms might take. The main focus, however, will be on the way the statutory good faith obligation introduced in 2000 has developed over the last decade and in particular the extent to which it has proved to be an effective mechanism for regulating employment relationships and collective bargaining. Gordon Anderson is Professor of Law in the Faculty of Law at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand where he teaches employment law and international trade law. Gordon is a well known writer and commentator on employment law and is one of the authors of New Zealand’s leading commentary on employment law: Mazengarb’s Employment Law (looseleaf, Lexis:Nexis). Gordon has written numerous articles on a variety of aspects of New Zealand employment law particularly on personal grievances and on the legal and industrial relations restructuring of the last two decades including the introduction of a good faith obligation into New Zealand labour law in 2000. Gordon is a barrister and has represented various clients in employment related matters and he has provided policy and legal advice on legislation and labour law reform. To RSVP to attend this seminar please click here .
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| 4 November |
The Regulatory Paradigm in Australian Labour Law Labour law as an academic sub-discipline has been changing in response to developments in the labour market and work relationships. In Australia, work on the ‘labour law and labour market regulation’ project has adopted the perspective of law as a form of regulation. This presentation will examine the labour law and labour market regulation project and the potential which this work has for developing a new paradigm of labour law, one founded in the social operation of law. Dr Andrew Frazer is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Wollongong, where he teaches and researches in employment law, labour regulation and anti-discrimination law. Much of his research has involved the history of industrial tribunals in Australia under compulsory arbitration, and the changes in legal thinking resulting from the movement towards enterprise bargaining.
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| 27 August |
Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada: The Low-skilled Stream Professor Judy Fudge is Professor and Lansdowne Chair in Law at the University of Victoria, Canada, where she teaches employment and labour law. She began her academic career at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and she has written extensively on labour law, employment law, labour law history, pay equity, and human rights at work. Her current research is on the regulation of working time, constitutionalization of workers’ rights and the rights of temporary workers admitted to Canada to perform low-waged work that is not attractive to citizens and permanent residents.
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| 13 May |
His Master's Voice? Work Choices as a Return to Master and Servant Concepts In this seminar, Mary Gardiner suggests that an explanation for this conundrum can be found by examining the legislation through the lens of master and servant concepts and laws. In particular, the feudal concept of status, where the dominance of masters and later employers was regarded as a natural right, has particular resonance in Work Choices. Mary Gardiner completed the Master of Labour Relations Law at Melbourne Law School last year and is a Commonwealth public servant, working in human resource management. Mary has previously lectured in organisational behaviour at RMIT. She has published in the Sydney Law Review and the Australian Journal of Labour Law, and has worked as a consultant to the International Labour Organisation.
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| 22 April |
Unfair Dismissal Law: From Work Choices to the Fair Work Act 2009 Anna Chapman is a senior lecturer in the Melbourne Law School and a member of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law. She is a Co-Editor of the Australian Journal of Labour Law. Anna has authored a number of papers on termination of employment and Australian law, the most recent of which is ‘The Decline and Restoration of Unfair Dismissal Rights’, in A Forsyth and A Stewart, Fair Work: The New Workplace Laws and the Work Choices Legacy, Federation Press, publishing late March 2009. In this seminar the federal unfair dismissal jurisdiction under Work Choices will be briefly reviewed, and the ‘new’ regime of the Fair Work framework will be explored. Thoughts on the direction of law reform in this area, and the importance of clarifying the normative framework of an unfair dismissal scheme, will be offered.
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