scholarly journals Employment Rights in an Era of Individualised Employment

2007 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Anderson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Real World ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Inaugural Lecture ◽  
Law Faculty ◽  
Contract Of Employment ◽  
The Common ◽  
Employment Rights

On 7 August 2007, Gordon Anderson delivered his inaugural lecture after becoming a professor in the Law Faculty of Victoria University of Wellington. Gordon took as his theme the protection of employees employed on an individual contract of employment. Following the repeal of the award system by the Employment Contracts Act 1991 the majority of New Zealand employees ceased to be covered by collectively negotiated instruments. Instead the contract of employment became dominant. The lecture argued that the common law contract of employment provides little protection for employees. Instead protection depends on some critical statutory interventions that provide a degree of balance within the employment relationship. While not perfect, these protections may be the best that can be expected in the real world of employment.

The erosion of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence in Australian employment law

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-297
Author(s):  
Vanitha Sundra-Karean
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Mutual Trust ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
High Court ◽  
The Common ◽  
Interpretive Method ◽  
Employment Rights

Although the implied duty of mutual trust and confidence has long been established as an implied term in employment contracts under English common law, the Australian High Court has recently ruled that it is not part of the common law regulating employment contracts in Australia because the implication of such a term was better regulated under statute. While it is acknowledged that legislation is most effective in regulating substantive employment rights and obligations, a political climate which lends itself to ideologically divergent policy reforms often robs the discipline of its stability. However, if there exists a legal framework apart from legislation, which coheres with it and has the ability to initiate juridical development in the law, as is the role of the common law, the result will be an enrichment of the discipline overall. This paper traces selected English and Australian judicial approaches towards the implication of the duty of mutual trust and confidence in the context of terminations of employment within a statutory regime, culminating with an analysis of the recent Australian High Court decision in Commonwealth Bank of Australia v Barker (Barker), which has diminished common law’s interpretive role in this regard. Consequently, this paper aims to revitalize common law reasoning by utilizing Dworkin’s judicial interpretive method as the necessary theoretical framework.

scholarly journals The Compensation Scheme No One Asked For: The Origins of ACC in New Zealand

2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Compensation Scheme ◽  
Law System ◽  
Law Faculty ◽  
Commission Report ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Law System

The vision laid down in the 1967 Royal Commission Report was radical in scope and quickly became controversial. Led by its Chairman, Sir Owen Woodhouse, the Commission presented a series of connected principles to support that vision, drawing from earlier critiques of the common law system in New Zealand and abroad. This paper explores the legal background in New Zealand prior to the Woodhouse Report and reviews prior movement toward reform, including submissions made by members of the Victoria University Law Faculty. It also describes opposition to the Report from members of the bar and other interest groups, but suggests reasons why the Woodhouse framework was nonetheless able to prevail.

scholarly journals SHOULD REFUSAL TO WORK FOLLOWING BREACH OF CONTRACT BY THE EMPLOYER REALLY BE A STRIKE? National Union of Mineworkers on behalf of Employees v Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (2011) 32 ILJ 2104 (LAC)

Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thanduxolo Qotoyi
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
Breach Of Contract ◽  
National Union ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Appeal Court ◽  
Contract Of Employment ◽  
The Common ◽  
Labour Legislation

The employment relationship is by its very nature premised on the foundation of inherent inequality between the employer and the employee. The employer by virtue of the resources at its disposal is in a stronger position than the employee. One of the strong criticisms levelled against the common law has always been its indifference to this unequal division of power. The common law tends to deal with a contract of employment on the basis that it is an agreement entered into voluntarily and on equal footing bythe employer and the employee. Unsurprisingly, the common law regards terms that regulate the employment relationship as being freely entered into by the contracting parties. This assumption overlooks the inherent inequality that characterizes the employment relationship. It is on account of this assumption that the common law can be mostly associated with unfairness when it comes to the employment relationship. Nowhere is this assumption clearer than in cases of dismissal. In relation to dismissal all that the common law demands is that the dismissal must be lawful. This requirement is easily met if the employer merely provides the employee with a notice of the dismissal. Under the common law there is no mention of fairness as a requirement for a dismissal. In order to address the deficiencies of the common law, the legislature has enacted labour legislation like the Labour Relations Act (66 of 1995, hereinafter “the LRA”) which seeks to bring in some equilibrium in the employment relationship. It must also be said that the LRA provides partiesinvolved in the employment relationship with a framework within which employment issues must be addressed. This has resulted in a situation where in some instances there is a collision between the common law and the LRA. The critical question that emerges is whether the rights and remedies of the employees in the event of a breach of contract must be exclusively determined within the framework of the LRA. If the answer is in the affirmative then it means that the common law has lost some of its relevance in employment issues. This case note seeks to analyse the tension between the common law and the LRA in the context of employees withholding their labour on account of a breach of contract by the employer. It also seeks to analyse the implications of the approach adopted by the Labour Appeal Court in National Union of Mine Workers on behalf of Employees v Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration ((2011) 32 ILJ 2104 (LAC)).

20. Ending Employment Contracts at Common Law; and Duties to Redundant and Transferring Staff

Business Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 510-537
Author(s):  
James Marson ◽  
Katy Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Good Working ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Wrongful Dismissal

This chapter identifies the remedy for the termination of contracts of employment through the common law claim of wrongful dismissal. It addresses situations of redundancy, and the rights of individuals and obligations on employers when the business is transferred to a new owner. Each of these measures offer protection to employees, and employers should understand the nature of these rights, the qualifications necessary for each mechanism, and the remedies available, to ensure they select the most appropriate mechanism to bring the employment relationship to an end. Before the 1960s, contracts of employment were largely dealt with by the ‘normal’ rules of contract law and were often heard by courts that hear contractual disputes. It is important to be aware of the mechanisms that will enable termination of the employment relationship without transgressing the law in order to maintain good working relations.

Contracts and the Implied Freedom of Political Communication

2020 ◽  
pp. 0067205X2097975
Author(s):  
Patrick McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Out Of Hours ◽  
The Common

This article considers the phenomenon of contractually-imposed restraints on political communication. Such restraints often incidentally arise from broad limits on out-of-hours conduct imposed by employment contracts or from confidentiality or non-disparagement clauses in deeds of settlement. It is argued that the implied freedom of political communication has work to do in relation to at least some categories of such restraints. The various objections to that view are examined and it is argued those objections are not compelling. The article analyses the question of how the implied freedom would operate in respect of contracts that impermissibly burden freedom of political communication, and suggests that this may be achieved by developing the common law of contract to accomodate a doctrine similar to the doctrine governing unreasonable restraints of trade.

The Contractualisation of Labour Law

2018 ◽  
pp. 33-47
Author(s):  
John Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Work Relations ◽  
Contractual Relationship ◽  
The World ◽  
British Labour ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Main Ideas

This chapter explores the idea that labour law rests on ‘a contractual foundation’, and the idea that work relations today are ever more ‘contractualised’. Section 1 lays out some essentials of British labour law and its connections with the common law of contract. Section 2 explains what contractualisation is, not yet focusing attention on the specific context of labour law. The main claims are that contract is not a specifically legal device, and that contractualisation is therefore not a specifically legal process, even when the law is complicit in it. Section 3 shifts attention to the world of work, especially the employment relationship. Here the main ideas are that the employment relationship is not (apart from the law) a contractual relationship, and that all the norms of the employment relationship cannot therefore be captured adequately in a contract, legally binding or otherwise. Section 4 illustrates the latter point by focusing on the rationale and the limits of the employer’s authority over the employee. A contractual rationale yields the wrong limits. It gives its blessing to authoritarian work regimes and lends credence to the miserable view that work is there to pay for the life of the worker without forming part of that life. Throughout the chapter there are intimations of the conclusion drawn in section 5: that contractualisation, in the labour market at least, is a process that lovers of freedom, as well as lovers of self-realisation, should resist—or rather, should have resisted while they still had the chance.

Family Provision in New Zealand and Australia

2020 ◽  
pp. 450-476
Author(s):  
Nicola Peart ◽  
Prue Vines
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Sex Partners ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Reproductive Techniques ◽  
The Common ◽  
Over Time

New Zealand and Australia are named in that order in the title because New Zealand was the first to develop the discretionary family provision jurisdiction, in 1900, that now applies in New Zealand, Australia, and much of the common law world. This allows courts to make awards to family members from the estate of the deceased. Originally benefitting only the surviving spouse and children, family provision has extended the rules of eligibility in line with changes in the meaning of ‘family’. So as well as spouses, claims can also, in many of the Australasian jurisdictions, be made by civil partners, cohabitants, and same-sex partners. Most jurisdictions have also broadened the class of eligible children to include grandchildren and stepchildren who were being maintained by the deceased as well as children born of new reproductive techniques. Both New Zealand and Australia have significant indigenous populations and their eligibility to claim family provision is modified to accord with their customary law. Over time, the courts have adopted a much broader view of a deceased’s ‘moral duty’ to his or her family, particularly in regard to claims by adult children. The size of awards has increased correspondingly. The chapter discusses this development, as well as the increasing relevance of Indigenous customary law and how the courts deal with disentitling conduct. In view of the greatly expanded scope of family provision in New Zealand and Australia, testamentary freedom may be only an illusion in these jurisdictions.

2. Employment status

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roseanne Russell
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Employment Status ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Contract Of Employment ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Common ◽  
Additional Reading

The Q&A series offer the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and illustrative diagrams and flowcharts. This chapter presents sample exam questions about employment status. Through a mixture of problem questions and essays, students are guided through some of the key issues on the topic of employment status including definitions of employee and worker, the common law tests for determining whether a contract of employment exists, and discussion on the changing nature of the labour market including the gig economy. Students are also introduced to the current key debates in the area and provided with suggestions for additional reading for those who want to take things further.

8. Employment II: termination—wrongful dismissal, unfair dismissal, and redundancy

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-129
Author(s):  
James Marson ◽  
Katy Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Essential Information ◽  
Employment Contract ◽  
Contract Employees ◽  
Unfair Dismissal ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Employment Rights ◽  
Wrongful Dismissal

Each Concentrate revision guide is packed with essential information, key cases, revision tips, exam Q&As, and more. Concentrates show you what to expect in a law exam, what examiners are looking for, and how to achieve extra marks. This chapter reviews the law on the termination of the employment contract. Employees have a statutory right not to be unfairly dismissed and the Employment Rights Act (ERA) 1996 identifies the criteria to be satisfied in order for the employee to gain protection. The common law protects against wrongful dismissal and provides tests and guidance for situations involving a breach of an employment contract. The chapter also considers redundancy situations. As this is governed by statute, it is necessary to appreciate the obligations imposed on the employer to adopt fair procedures.

7. Contractual employment rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 144-160
Author(s):  
Stephen Taylor ◽  
Astra Emir
Keyword(s):  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Contract Of Employment ◽  
The Law ◽  
Employment Rights

This chapter introduces the basic principles of the law of contract as they apply to contracts of employment. It focuses on three issues in particular. First we look at how contracts are formed in the context of an employment relationship and at the conditions that need to be in place if a contract of employment is to be enforceable in a court. We then go on to discuss how employers can go about lawfully varying the terms of contracts by using flexibility clauses and other approaches. Finally we discuss the need to provide employees with written particulars of their employment soon after they start working in a new job.

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