The importance of accountability has long been sheeted home to the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), the federal statutory agency responsible for enforcement of minimum employment standards under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). In the immediate aftermath of Work Choices, the activities of...

This article examines to what extent there is legacy of the Commission’s labour standards in the new legislated standards in the National Employment Standards and dismissal protection in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). The Commission’s ‘community standards’, mainly from ‘test cases’...

Although employee-representation systems coexist with a collective-bargaining framework in continental Europe for many years, US labor advocates have looked upon those representations systems with suspicion. The reasons for this suspicion are historical: US employee-representation systems have...

This article outlines the current state of the law regarding conduct that, while otherwise protected by Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, nonetheless involves workplace profanity or offensive speech that potentially violates employer civility rules and equal employment opportunity...

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) employment law amendments are a peculiar invention arising out of the unprecedented economic times which we are facing as a nation. This article looks at the legislative responses to the Coronavirus pandemic in the area of employment law. It sets out the pre-existing...