scholarly journals Trade Union Recognition and Australia’s Neo-Liberal Voluntary Bargaining Laws

2003 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron McCallum

Summary When Australia deregulated its economy in the 1980s, political pressures built up leading in the 1990s to the dismantling of Australia’s industry-wide conciliation and arbitration systems. New laws established regimes of collective bargaining at the level of the employing undertaking. This article analyzes the 1993 and 1996 federal bargaining laws and argues that they fail to protect the right of trade unions to bargain on behalf of their members. This is because the laws do not contain a statutory trade union recognition mechanism. The recognition mechanisms in the Common Law countries of the United States, Canada, Britain and New Zealand are examined, and it is argued that Australia should enact trade union recognition mechanisms that are consonant with its industrial relations history and practice.

Author(s):  
Mary Garvey Algero

Despite the fundamental differences between the doctrines employed in common law and civil law (or mixed) jurisdictions when it comes to the respect paid to prior court decisions and their weight or value, United States courts that follow the common law doctrine of stare decisis have embraced some of the flexibility inherent in the civil law doctrine, and civil law and mixed jurisdictions throughout the world, including Louisiana, that use the doctrine of jurisprudence constante seem to have come to value the predictability and certainty that come with the common law doctrine. This Article suggests that Louisiana courts are striking the right balance between valuing the predictability and certainty of interpretation that comes with a healthy respect for precedent and maintaining the flexibility and adaptability of the law by not strictly considering precedent a source of law. This Article discusses the results of an ongoing examination of the sources of law and the value of precedent in Louisiana. The examination involves a study of Louisiana legislation, Louisiana courts’ writings about the sources of law and precedent, and a survey of Louisiana judges. Part of the examination included reviewing Louisiana judicial opinions on various issues to determine if there were differences in valuing precedent based on area of law or topic. It also included reviewing judicial opinions from the United States Supreme Court and New York state courts to compare these courts’ approaches to the use of precedent with those of the Louisiana courts. The article is based on a paper presented to the Third Congress of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists, which was held in Jerusalem, Israel in June 2011, and the author’s prior writings on the subject.


Author(s):  
Sylvia Rohlfer

In this chapter the authors analyze the role of trade unions for firm formation from the perspective of the individual entrepreneur. The industrial relations and entrepreneurship literature reviewed shows that trade unions matter in firm formation decisions in three ways: with regard to the occupational choice problem, the management of potential employees and the resource availability for the startup. Taking the Spanish economy as an example the findings from an empirical study demonstrate the perceived actual and potential role of unions for firm formation. The findings are compared with trade union activity in Germany and the United States in order to draw recommendations for trade union strategists.


1969 ◽  
pp. 313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Szakats

In the following article Doctor Szakats evaluates the workers' position with regard to the necessity of membership in union as an indispensable prerequisite for obtaining and retaining work. In particular, he analyzes current employer-union practices and legislation in New Zealand, Great Britain and the United States. The author points out that in New Zealand the relevant statutes apply only to registered workers' associations. However, registered union has the advantages of: monopoly position; blanket clauses; and unqualified preference clauses. The author concludes that the so-called abolition of compulsory unionism in New Zealand does not change the position of workers seeking employment since by virtue of the unqualified preference clauses in nearly all awards and industrial agreements, compulsory unionism has de facto remained in force. In Great Britain, as in New Zealand, relevant statutes apply only to registered associations. Although it has been recognized in Great Britain since 1871 that trade unions are voluntary associations, the theory does not always conform with the practice. As result, certain arrangements can inhibit worker's choice of specified trade union and closed shop agreements may lawfully counteract this right of not joining, thereby introducing de facto compulsory unionism. By way of contrast to Great Britain and New Zealand, relevant legislation in the United States extends to and binds all trade unions. The author concludes that although com pulsory unionism imposed by the state generally weakens the labour movement, compulsory unionism imposed by employer-union agreement strengthens the movement.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Benjamin Suter

<p>This paper examines the scope of rights of appeal from arbitration awards in New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.  In countries that have drafted their legislation after the UNCITRAL Model Law appeals are often excluded and only recourse based on very narrow grounds is available. While many countries are more permissive with regards to appeals than the Model Law in that they allow the parties to opt for more expansive review, none of the examined jurisdictions give the parties the right to opt for appeals on questions of law and fact.  In several cases parties have tried to expand the rights of appeal by agreement. Such agreements are deemed invalid in all jurisdictions. When examining whether the invalid clause renders the entire arbitration agreement invalid, courts in common law jurisdictions have applied the doctrine of severance in some variations. Civil law courts usually examine whether the parties would have concluded the contract without the invalid clause (“but for”-test).  This paper suggests that many of these tests are not suitable for arbitration agreements where the parties do not exchange considerations but rather promise one another exactly the same. The preferable approach is to combine the “but for”-test with a test that assesses if severance alters the nature of the agreement.</p>


1969 ◽  
pp. 256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine F. Geddes

The author examines the law with respect to the status and powers of private investigators and reviews cases in both Canada and the United States involving the activities of private investigators. Possible remedies available against the private investigator, both in tort and criminal law, are reviewed, as well as American cases on the common law of invasion of privacy, Canadian cases under the various provincial Privacy Acts and possible remedies under the Charter of Rights. Privacy is the right of the individual to decide for himself how much of his life, his thoughts, emotions and the facts that are personal to him he will share with others.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Benjamin Suter

<p>This paper examines the scope of rights of appeal from arbitration awards in New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.  In countries that have drafted their legislation after the UNCITRAL Model Law appeals are often excluded and only recourse based on very narrow grounds is available. While many countries are more permissive with regards to appeals than the Model Law in that they allow the parties to opt for more expansive review, none of the examined jurisdictions give the parties the right to opt for appeals on questions of law and fact.  In several cases parties have tried to expand the rights of appeal by agreement. Such agreements are deemed invalid in all jurisdictions. When examining whether the invalid clause renders the entire arbitration agreement invalid, courts in common law jurisdictions have applied the doctrine of severance in some variations. Civil law courts usually examine whether the parties would have concluded the contract without the invalid clause (“but for”-test).  This paper suggests that many of these tests are not suitable for arbitration agreements where the parties do not exchange considerations but rather promise one another exactly the same. The preferable approach is to combine the “but for”-test with a test that assesses if severance alters the nature of the agreement.</p>


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
John Gardner

This chapter focuses on the law of torts, not in the United States, but in other major common law jurisdictions (England and Wales, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) in which tort cases are normally adjudicated by judges sitting without juries. It considers the so-called classical interpretation of the common law of torts by John Goldberg and Ben Zipursky, and how they tend to equivocate on an important point of law in a way that puts them at odds with some writers with whom they would do better to make common cause. It suggests that this equivocation is where the law of the United States parts company with the law in the rest of the common law world. The problem, an English lawyer might then teasingly say, is with American tort law rather than with the Goldberg and Zipursky rendition of it.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Benjamin Suter

<p>This paper examines the scope of rights of appeal from arbitration awards in New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.  In countries that have drafted their legislation after the UNCITRAL Model Law appeals are often excluded and only recourse based on very narrow grounds is available. While many countries are more permissive with regards to appeals than the Model Law in that they allow the parties to opt for more expansive review, none of the examined jurisdictions give the parties the right to opt for appeals on questions of law and fact.  In several cases parties have tried to expand the rights of appeal by agreement. Such agreements are deemed invalid in all jurisdictions. When examining whether the invalid clause renders the entire arbitration agreement invalid, courts in common law jurisdictions have applied the doctrine of severance in some variations. Civil law courts usually examine whether the parties would have concluded the contract without the invalid clause (“but for”-test). This paper suggests that many of these tests are not suitable for arbitration agreements where the parties do not exchange considerations but rather promise one another exactly the same. The preferable approach is to combine the “but for”-test with a test that assesses if severance alters the nature of the agreement.</p>


Legal Studies ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-212
Author(s):  
Richard Townshend-Smith

It is well known that the United States of America has had a mechanism designed to secure the compulsory recognition of trade unions by law since the mid-thirties. Such procedure is part of the bedrock of American labour law. In Great Britain, however, no attempt at compulsion was made until 1971, when the Industrial Relations Act was passed. This Act was repealed three years later, although the operation of the recognition provisions hardly contributed to the factors leading to repeal. Another attempt at compulsion was made by the 1975 Employment Protection Act. However, the relevant sections have now been repealed by the 1980 Employment Act. Furthermore this repeal had at least some support both from the Labour opposition and from the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, the statutory body charged with operating the procedure.


2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 801-828 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solomon Barkin

Reviewing the industrial unrest of the last three years in Western Europe and the United States, the author describes and analyses the new trends in the trade-union movement to cope with such a new situation.


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