Melbourne Law School - Research Publications
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ItemA Changing of the Guard: Enforcement of Workplace Relations Laws Since Work Choices and Beyond(The Federation Press, 2009)
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Item'It's Oh So Quiet?' Employee Voice and the Enforcement of Employment Standards in Australia(Oxford University Press, 2014-03)This edited collection is the culmination of a comparative project on 'Voices at Work'; funded by the Leverhulme Trust 2010 - 2013.
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ItemReconsidering the Notion of 'Employer' in the Era of the Fissured Workplace: Traversing the Legislative Landscape in Australia(Kluwer Law International, 2017)
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ItemOut of the Shadows and into the Spotlight: The Sweeping Evolution of Employment Standards Enforcement in Australia(University of Toronto Press, 2020)This chapter considers some of the compliance and enforcement challenges presented by employment standards regulation in Australia and the way in which the FWO has sought to respond to the problem of employer non-compliance with workplace laws. We begin by surveying the broader historical, legal, and political processes through which domestic employment regulation and enforcement has emerged and continues to evolve in Australia. As part of this overview, we touch on a number of key developments, including the recent passage of statutory reforms designed to better protect vulnerable workers (Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act 2017 (Cth)). We then turn to the internal administration of the agency, including the FWO’s attempts to move away from an individualized, complaints-oriented approach towards a more “responsive” and “strategic” enforcement model.
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ItemTransnational Labour Governance in Global Supply Chains: Asking Questions and Seeking Answers on Accountability(ILO Press, 2021-02-17)The “language of accountability” has featured prominently in transnational labour governance. For decades now, activists have called on brands and lead firms in the developed world to take more responsibility for working conditions in their supply chains. Private regulatory initiatives are implicitly premised on transparency and market and reputational mechanisms that ostensibly enable consumers, investors and civil society actors to hold companies to account for their labour practices. Yet, there continues to be much debate and uncertainty in international and national fora about the meaning and mechanisms of accountability in global governance. In this chapter, we seek to explore the way in which conceptions of “accountability” in transnational labour governance have shifted during the recent past. As part of this analysis, we consider how accountability has been constructed and contested across different initiatives and through distinct conceptual frameworks. In undertaking this analysis, we apply a set of critical questions, namely: Who is accountable to whom? For what should they be held accountable for? Through what mechanisms or processes is accountability to be assured? By what standards is the putatively accountable behaviour to be judged? What are the potential effects of finding that these standards have been breached? Adopting an explicit focus on the way in which accountability has been applied – both normatively and in practice – reveals new insights into the pluralistic and complex relationships between regulators, intermediaries, targets and beneficiaries.
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ItemThe State Strikes Back: Supervision and Sanctioning of Unlawful Industrial Activity by Federal Government Agencies in Australia(Federation Press, 2018)Historically, the state was seen to have adopted a fairly passive role in relation to the enforcement of the collective norms of the federal industrial relations system. Less than 20 years on, and the state is no longer seen as a mere observer, but as an active participant in the supervision and sanctioning of unlawful industrial activity.
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ItemWhat's Causing the Wages Slowdown?(University of Adelaide Press, 2018)In this chapter we review some of the factors that seem likely to have contributed to the unusual weakness in Australian wage growth since 2013. Our focus is on the institutions and rules governing the labour market, which as Thomas Piketty notes are important in understanding the ‘dynamics of wage inequality’ in any society. The discussion here should be seen as a preface to some of the more detailed treatments that appear in later chapters. (It also assumes a passing acquaintance with the current system of labour regulation in Australia.
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ItemConclusion: Wages and Inclusive Growth(University of Adelaide Press, 2018)When we set out to produce this book, we had four broad questions in mind. What is the wages crisis? Why is it happening? Why does it matter? And what should we do about it? The first two questions were addressed by the various chapters of this book — although given the complexity and multidimensionality of the wages crisis, there is obviously room for further research and dialogue to refine those explanations. The last question — what to do about it — is one to which we return below. But before that, it may be helpful to revisit the third question, in light of the rich and varied contributions to this collection: why does it matter that we have a wages crisis in Australia, and why should it demand the attention of policy makers and the public at large?