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1880 results in Employment Law

Page 48 of 94

Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
  • A European Perspective
  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018
  • This edited volume investigates the changing patterns of labour market and unemployment policies in EU member states during the period since the politics of austerity took hold in 2010.

  • thirteen - Slovenian labour market policies under austerity: narrowing the gap between the well- and the less well-protected in the labour market?

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 309-336

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The Slovenian welfare system is based on elements of a conservative-corporative welfare system, with compulsory social insurance systems and the state in a prominent role as provider of (universal) services, such as health, child care and education (Kolarič et al, 2009, 2011). In the 1990s, a fairly gradual approach to welfare system reform was adopted (Kolarič et al, 2009, 2011), which has continued until today. This gradualist approach is linked to the strong institutionalisation of social dialogue and relatively strong trade unions, the high coverage of collective agreements, and the prevalence of left-centrist parties in government over the past 25 years. Furthermore, as emphasised by Lavrač and Majcen (2006), Slovenia is one of the more developed countries in Central and Eastern Europe and thus could afford to take a gradual approach to structural reforms of the economy (eg privatisation). It thus opted for gradual reforms of the labour market, pension system, social welfare system and education system, keeping family policy intact, as well as social services such as childcare and elderly care (Kolarič et al, 2009, 2011; Filipovič Hrast and Rakar, 2017). However, the authors also warned that a potential negative side of this approach is the postponement of necessary structural reforms. Consequently, according to some authors (eg Guardiancich, 2011), although Slovenia has ensured social peace in this way, it may also be the reason that the crisis has hit Slovenia particularly hard.

    The economic crisis, which led to high unemployment, stimulated several reforms of the labour market. In addition to the economic pressures, the Slovenian welfare state is also facing pressures from demographic ageing. These pressures are most evident in the poor sustainability of the pension system, but also in the labour market and its state of preparedness for an ageing workforce. One of the important reasons for the pension reform was the necessity to increase the activity rate among older age groups (55–64 years of age), which is among the lowest in the European Union (EU) (42.2% in the second quarter of 2016; see Eurostat, 2017).

    In the next two sections, we present the major labour market policy changes, with emphasis on the period after 2010. These changes are also presented in relation to the retrenchment/expansion of policies, as well as the adoption of activation and flexicurity, as well as their consequences for the living standards of the most vulnerable groups.

  • two - Structural reforms in Europe: a comparative overview

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 15-42

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The present chapter provides an overview of structural reforms (SRs) – measures to improve economic growth prospects and the ability of economies to adjust to economic shocks – introduced in Europe between 1999 and 2012 and, in particular, during the Great Recession (2008–12). Such a cross-policy analysis – including social protection (eg pensions), education policy, research and development (R&D) and public sector reforms – makes it possible to shed light on the complex interaction of the labour market policies that are at the core of this volume with social policies (aimed at welfare production and redistribution) and economic policies (aimed at economic production).

    While the concept of SRs is highly debated in the literature and needs some revision of its normative roots, we consider it a good descriptive tool: it helps to trace reform trends in a number of policy areas and to understand the overall functioning of a socio-economic system. The present chapter proposes a new typology of SRs for a more detailed analysis of SRs trends in Europe.

    Through the analysis of reforms between 1999 and 2012, we address two key questions: ‘Is there a common reform trend of a ‘race to the bottom’ in relation to social and employment rights?’; and ‘What has been the impact of the Great Recession? Do we see overall continuity or a shift between the pre- and post-crisis?’. In the following, we analyse five country clusters – Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Continental European, Southern European and Visegrad countries, which are consistent with the different varieties of capitalism and employment regimes – and we provide evidence of diverse reform trends over time.

    The present contribution is organised as follows. The second section presents the research questions at the core of the chapter and provides a brief review of the literature on socio-economic reforms in Europe over the last decades. The third section lays out the definition of SRs and the complementarity between socio-economic policies before and since the Great Recession. The fourth section provides an overview of SRs in the European Union (EU), with a focus on reform trends and outputs. The fifth section draws some conclusions.

    Socio-economic reforms in Europe: common path or different strategies?

    Recent contributions on the political economy of socio-economic reforms have followed a cross-policy perspective.

  • seven - The Netherlands and the crisis: from activation to ‘deficiency compensation’

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 141-168

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In the 1980s, the Netherlands was one of the first countries in Western Europe to adapt its industrial unemployment provision system to the requirements of a new ‘post-industrial age’ (Clasen and Clegg, 2011a). By drastically reforming the unemployment insurance system, it was opened up to a growing number of temporary, flexible and part-time workers in the tertiary sector (Hoogenboom, 2011). In the next decade, by means of several labour law reforms, the Dutch labour market was made more flexible, resulting in rapidly growing numbers of temporary and part-time workers, as well as self-employed workers without employees (De Beer, 2011).

    In the same period, the Netherlands also became one of pioneering countries in the development of ‘activation policies’ in the European Union (EU), that is, of active labour market policies (ALMPs), which, unlike ALMPs in earlier times, combine ‘incentive reinforcement and employment assistance’ (Bonoli, 2010: 450). In the late 1990s, huge investments in activation policies caused government spending on ALMPs to rise from 0.3% of gross national product (GNP) in the late 1980s to more than 0.5% in 2000. Although the proportion fell to 0.4% in the early 2000s due to falling unemployment rates and cutbacks imposed by centre-right governments on ALMP spending, the Netherlands remained one of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries spending most on ALMPs (OECD, 2007).

    However, in the years preceding the 2008 financial and economic crisis, enthusiasm for both flexibilisation and activation had cooled in the Netherlands. Trade unions and populist political parties warned about the insecure position of the rapidly growing number of employees with precarious jobs and of involuntary self-employed workers without employees. Under electoral pressure, the centre parties also gradually withdrew their support for further flexibilisation of the Dutch labour market and cutbacks in unemployment protection.

    At the same time, the results of the new activation programmes, which were basically meant to compensate for the growing flexibility of the Dutch labour market by facilitating job-to-job mobility, turned out to be disappointing. While on the eve of the financial and economic crisis in the Netherlands, the contours of a new ALMP paradigm were discussed, its implementation was thwarted by the consequences of the crisis for the government budget.

  • eleven - Czechia: political experimentation or incremental reforms?

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 253-276

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this chapter, we shall assess the dynamics of labour market policies and regulations during 2008–14 in Czechia. A primary focus will be developments in the unemployment benefit scheme (income replacement for insiders), active labour market policies (ALMPs) (including labour market training) and employment protection legislation. Second, we shall analyse needs-based income support (minimum income protection) and activation policies related to the minimum income scheme (MIS). Three issues will be paramount. The first concerns substantive and governance-related policy changes: whether these changes have brought expansion or retrenchment in expenditure and coverage (of benefit recipients or participants of the programmes). The second concerns whether there has been a shift in the character of the policy instruments that promote activation: whether these instruments have been rather enabling/restitutive or punitive/repressive in nature. The third concerns whether and how divisions are emerging concerning the policies between groups facing the risk of unemployment. Besides an assessment of labour market policy trends during the crisis and afterwards, the politics underlying the reforms will be discussed.

    The key methodological approach is institutional policy analysis, combined with the secondary analysis of data from international and national sources. Historical institutionalism accentuates the role of institutional legacies in policies: policies and institutions are considered to be path-dependent on the institutional set-up. Institutional path dependency explains to a great extent the varieties of policy dynamics in different countries or the persistence of given features of welfare and labour market regimes over time, despite the common challenges that countries face. Studies also show that institutional path dependency is shaped by institutional traditions. Saxonberg et al (2013) explain, for example, how policy path dependency has been strong in Czechia in the area of childcare policies, even during the transition to a market democracy during the 1990s and 2000s, due to the cultural and institutional legacies of the past, in contrast to a new area, such as labour market policy, which has been subject to experimentation.

    Path dependency, however, is not an obstacle to policy change. Incremental forms of institutional change can take place through ‘bricolage’ or ‘layering’. Accumulation of the incremental changes may, at times, lead to path-breaking change when the policy path comes to a critical juncture (Palier, 2005; Streeck and Thelen, 2005).

  • three - Income support policies and labour market reforms under austerity in Greece

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 43-68

  • Summary

    Introduction

    One of the most surprising features of the social situation in Greece over the past few years has been the almost complete failure of the social safety net to cope with the fallout from the recession, the most severe in the euro area. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that the ‘supply’ of social protection in the country fell just as the ‘demand’ – that is, the need – for it increased dramatically.

    During 2007–13, the Greek economy contracted by 26.5% in real terms. The loss in output was far greater than in other Southern European economies (Portugal: –7.6%; Spain: –7.5%; and Italy: –8.7%; or Ireland: –7.0%) over the same period. To find another example of such a harsh and drawn-out recession in the peacetime economic history of advanced economies, one would have to go back to the US Great Depression (–30% of gross domestic product [GDP] during 1929–32).

    The steep rise in joblessness is no doubt the most characteristic feature of the Great Recession in Greece. Before the crisis, in May 2008, unemployment had reached its lowest level for over a decade (6.7% of the labour force). Thereafter, it started to rise again, gathering pace as the recession deepened.

    The unemployment rate peaked at 28.7% in November 2013, and remained as high as 21.4% in April 2017. The decrease in employment was greater than the increase in unemployment: during 2008–13, the number of employed workers declined by 1,064,000, while the number of unemployed ones rose by 942,000. The total employment rate stood at 52.0% in 2016, having fallen to as low as 48.8% in 2013. In 2008, it had been 61.4%.

    Since the Greek crisis has been protracted as well as deep, it is hardly surprising that the stock of unemployed workers out of work for over 12 months has risen so much. The long-term unemployment rate peaked at 19.5% in 2014, and was still as high as 17.0% in 2016, relative to 3.7% in 2008.

    Policy responses to increased unemployment in all countries and at all times are constrained by fiscal considerations. However, in Greece during the Great Recession, these constraints have been much tighter than is usually the case as the government has operated under conditions of extreme ‘austerity’.

  • nine - No longer ‘fit for purpose’? Consolidation and catch-up in Irish labour market policy

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 197-224

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The recent economic crisis hit Ireland hard. Its economic contraction generated sharp increases in unemployment and underemployment. Policy efforts to respond to the unemployment challenge were heavily impacted by both the lack of resources at a time of fiscal crisis and the overriding aim of fiscal consolidation. Moreover, changes to labour market policies have been guided by the idea, promoted by both domestic and international policy actors, that Ireland's policy regime prior to the crisis was no longer ‘fit for purpose’, being overly focused on a passive benefit system and a similarly passive approach to activation. Judged against Ireland's typically conservative and slow pace of reform, a period of deep austerity between late 2008 and 2014 instigated rapid and potentially transformative labour market policy (LMP) changes. By 2016, the government framed a new policy phase, ‘activation in a time of recovery and growth’ (Government of Ireland, 2016: 4); however, several issues remain problematic in terms of both the changes instigated and the legacies of the crisis.

    In this chapter, three core changes related to consolidation and catch-up are identified. First, retrenchment is clearly evident across the social protection system in payments to those of working age. Moreover, retrenchment is occurring in a system in which the social insurance principle is already weak. Social assistance features strongly and several categories of means-tested payments add complexity. There is no distinction between social insurance and social assistance schemes in terms of benefit rates and a flat-rate system operates. In contrast to many other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, the labour market is less dualistic, with little difference in the termination costs of permanent and of temporary staff (OECD, 2014a). Changes made over the crisis period have therefore further eroded the security attached to social protection in the context of cuts and curtailments of all working-age programmes.

    Second, in terms of activation, existing programmes that focused heavily on direct job creation have been somewhat curtailed and new, more market-oriented, programmes have been introduced. The simultaneous pursuit of cost containment has been borne by participants via diminished benefits and tighter eligibility requirements. Compulsion has also been strengthened, though distinctions remain in terms of which groups are activated and how.

  • eight - Dualising the Swedish model: insiders and outsiders and labour market policy reform in Sweden: an overview

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 169-196

  • Summary

    Introduction

    What was widely regarded as the ‘Swedish model’ of labour market policy no longer exists. However, it is not the fault of fiscal austerity imposed by the European Union (EU). Rather, it is the product of a long series of reforms that began with another economic crisis: the Swedish financial crisis of the early 1990s. The recurring budget deficits and the growing debt that it produced forced cutbacks in the welfare system, and the unyielding and high levels of unemployment opened the door to labour market reform. These reforms put Swedish labour market policy on a new trajectory more in line with international trends, in particular, with efforts to spur job growth in the low-skill segment of the labour market.

    For many decades, it seemed that the Swedish model was immune to change. Welfare scholars saw in Sweden a paragon of an equal society based on a generous welfare state that had withstood the pressures of globalisation. While it is true that some welfare institutions are still intact, that is no longer the case in labour market policy.

    This chapter traces labour market reforms in Sweden over the past two decades or so and attempts to answer the questions posed by the present volume: what areas of labour market policy have been retrenched, in what way and who bears the burden of reform? The pattern suggested here is one in which labour market outsiders have borne the brunt of reforms. This can be seen in the manner in which labour market flexibility was introduced, in the fact that many of the unemployed now stand outside the social insurance system, in the declining value of social assistance benefits and, perhaps most strikingly, in the radical cuts to spending on active labour market policy. Taken together, and at odds with the literature (eg Iversen, 2009; Palier and Thelen, 2010; Pontusson, 2011), these reforms have put Sweden on a path towards labour market ‘dualisation’ (Davidsson and Naczyk, 2009; Emmenegger et al, 2012).

    Politically, a range of forces have been in play. The Social Democrats, hamstrung by the tight economic conditions and high unemployment that followed the crisis of the early 1990s, conceded budget cuts, but also actively pursued labour market reform.

  • fourteen - Conclusions

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 337-362

  • Summary

    Introduction

    This book has investigated whether and, if so, how the pattern of labour market reforms has been changing in Europe during the recent crisis and, in particular, following the shift in fiscal policy in Europe from an expansionary stance to austerity from 2009/10 onwards, whereby public expenditure has been cut and taxes risen in the midst of the biggest post-war recession experienced in the area. Prior to the crisis, labour market policies had again been under (financial) pressure due to structural changes affecting European economies. However, reforms aimed at cutting costs and increasing flexibility had been matched with the development of new policy instruments and approaches, such as activation and, in some cases, social investment, while there had also been calls, not necessarily translated into actions, for expanding the protection and rights of labour market ‘outsiders’, to reduce their differentiation from those of ‘insiders’. The motivating premise behind this book has been that pressures for public spending cuts in a context of deep recession can alter the considerations that shape change in labour market policies as strong and self-reinforcing constraints are placed on both the supply (costs) and the demand for them. We have, therefore, sought to examine how these pressures for cuts have been distributed across ‘old’ and ‘new’ policy instruments, among insiders and outsiders, and across different activation instruments.

    Eleven national case studies have been used, spanning member states with different welfare regimes and under different degrees of European Union (EU) pressures for fiscal austerity. An additional chapter placed labour market reforms undertaken between 1999 and 2012 across the EU within a wider context of structural reforms in several key areas (pensions, education, research and development, and the public sector). Starting from the assumption that structural reforms attempt to balance social protection and investment for growth objectives, this comparative chapter developed a typology of reform strategies and characterised structural reform patterns across Europe and over time between 1999 and 2012.

    In this final chapter, quantitative and qualitative information is brought together in order to look at the bigger picture of reform patterns as it emerges. I also take a look at the evolution of labour market insecurity and examine whether there seems to be convergence or divergence in that respect.

  • ten - Retrenchment, conditionality and flexibility –UK labour market policies in the era of austerity

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 225-252

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The UK is a typical example of both a liberal market economy (Hall and Soskice, 2001) and liberal welfare state regime (Esping-Andersen, 1990). From the outset, it is important to stress that the UK does not fit a framework that distinguishes between an ‘industrial logic’ and a ‘post-industrial logic’ when it comes to labour market policies and public unemployment benefits as the industrial logic was never relevant here to begin with and the crisis did not change this. It is also important to bear in mind that – even before the vote to leave the European Union (EU) – the EU's influence on social policy in the UK was relatively limited and that ‘soft’ unbinding policy recommendations had little impact.

    This is not to say, however, that no change in labour market policies has taken place since the crisis. The following analysis will first examine the impact of the crisis on Britain and then map the changes and continuities in the areas of unemployment benefits, employment protection legislation, active labour market policies (ALMPs), training and human capital formation, and needs-based social protection for the unemployed. The year 2010 represents a key turning point in two respects: it was the year in which the full onset of the crisis was felt in Britain, and also the year when the government changed to a Conservative-dominated coalition with the Liberal Democrats (in 2015, replaced by a Conservative majority government), resulting in a number of significant welfare and labour market reforms.

    We argue that since the crisis, the pattern of labour market and unemployment policies has changed towards even more flexibility and less income protection despite growing problems of precariousness. Many of the existing programmes that aimed at human capital formation have either been redefined as a work test or turned into an opportunity for employers to undercut existing employment protection legislation and the minimum wage. With the exception of a brief ‘Keynesian’ moment in which the focus was on fiscal stimulus and one temporary direct labour market programme was introduced, the emphasis has been on ‘deficit reduction’. Rather than seeing the crisis as a turning point, a policy path taken since the 1980s was continued.

  • five - French employment market policies: dualisation and destabilisation

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 91-114

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this chapter, we ask whether the direction of labour market reforms in France has changed since 2010 by comparison with the previous two decades. In 2009, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the coordinated fiscal stimulus in Europe, France's general government budget deficit reached 7.2% of gross domestic product (GDP). This prompted the European Commission to propose placing France under the corrective arm of the excessive deficit procedure in order to bring this deficit below the 3% of GDP limit stipulated by the Stability and Growth Pact. A similar shift in fiscal policies, from stimulus to austerity, took place across pretty much the whole European Union (EU) during 2009–12.

    France is a particularly interesting case from a comparative perspective. Characterised by a conservative-corporatist labour market regime, it stands in between member states with corporatist labour market regimes in Southern Europe (Italy, Greece), which have faced overt or covert pressures for reform in a certain direction since 2010 due to real or impending fiscal crises, and member states such as Germany, in which fiscal pressures, although present and self-inflicted due to domestic politics, have been much weaker. In this chapter, we look into broad labour market policy areas, namely, income support for the unemployed, active labour market policies and employment protection legislation before and after 2009, and ask the following questions. What form has retrenchment taken under the recent fiscal pressures and how has it been distributed across these policy domains? Has the emphasis of active labour market policy instruments changed? How have policy changes affected insiders and outsiders in the labour market?

    We show that during the economic crisis and the subsequent fiscal austerity period, there were no paradigmatic changes in French labour market policies, which continued to develop along a path pursued since the early 2000s. Successive governments, both centre-right and centre-left, have implemented flexicurity à la française, with a focus on flexibility at the expense of security. External flexibility – firms’ ability to hire and dismiss workers – has been developed for both core workers and more precarious forms of employment (temporary work). Furthermore, new measures also introduced important changes in the field of internal flexibility (working-time organisation, wages) (Eichhorst and Konle-Seidl, 2008).

  • six - The German exception: welfare protectionism instead of retrenchment

  • Edited by Sotiria Theodoropoulou
  • Book:
    Labour Market Policies in the Era of Pervasive Austerity
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    12 April 2022
    Print publication:
    28 February 2018, pp 115-140

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Since the turn of the millennium, the German model has been characterised by a period of major reforms, followed by a period of remarkable stability and growth in times of global economic crisis. In Germany, austerity-related reforms occurred between 2003 and 2005, when a fundamental restructuring of the welfare system was perceived as necessary to ensure international competitiveness and fiscal sustainability in a situation of high unemployment and repeated failure to stabilise and ensure economic growth. After the first change of government since reunification in 1998, the new centre-left government was criticised for failing to cope with the economic effects of reunification, globalisation and demographic change. Germany repeatedly failed to adhere to the fiscal discipline of the European Stability and Growth Pact, which was central to the workings of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Both internal and external pressure led to policy reforms and fundamental changes in the pension and unemployment insurance systems, as well as social assistance schemes. In addition, the German model experienced a relaxation of capital market regulation, accompanied by a reduction of corporate taxes. After these reforms concluded in the mid-2000s, Germany has not continued with any austerity strategy in economic or social policy beyond sticking to fiscal constraints and the debt brake. On the contrary, since the financial crisis hit Europe, the government has responded with policies promoting growth and expansion.

    During 2008–09, most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries were hit by the financial crash and subsequent crisis and have struggled to recover ever since. In contrast to most countries, Germany not only managed to respond quickly to the effects of the crisis with fiscal stabilisation policies, but also managed to reduce unemployment to a lower level than before the economic crisis. Germany experienced a severe drop in gross domestic product (GDP) of over 5% in 2009, but through various quick policy responses – such as short-time working and the car scrappage programme – German firms recovered quickly. Ever since, Germany experienced employment growth and the highest average economic growth rate within the Eurozone. In contrast to most neighbouring countries, neither economic institutions nor major economic reforms were seen as necessary to stabilise the national economy. The current policy orientation is rather one of moderate re-regulation of the labour market and welfare state expansion.

  • Foreword

  • Louise Floyd, James Cook University, North Queensland, William Steenson, University of Technology Sydney, Amanda Coulthard, Bond University, Queensland, Daniel Williams, Anne C. Pickering, University of Queensland
  • Book:
    Employment, Labour and Industrial Law in Australia
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 November 2017, pp vii-viii

  • Summary

    Until the Industrial Revolution, the regulation of employment was not a subject which engaged the minds of legislators to any great extent. Even so, attempts to control employment had been made as early as 1351 when, in the reign of Edward III, the Statute of Labourers sought to reduce wages to the levels which applied before the Black Death. The labour shortage caused by that awful plague had seen wages rise and labourers move in search of improved conditions. As has often been the case, the statute failed to realise its goal.

    In this country, colonial governments made sporadic attempts to control the labour market, and often with the same lack of success as had been experienced half a millennium earlier in England. It was not until the great strikes of the 1890s that a concentrated effort was made to create a system which might prevent or settle disputes. Legislation to establish systems of conciliation and arbitration emerged, first in Western Australia (1900) and then New South Wales (1901), theCommonwealth (1904), South Australia (1915) and Queensland (1916). Tasmania and Victoria retained a curious attachment to wages boards until 1984 and 1992 respectively.

    The slow march in legislation was mirrored in the common law of employment, where principles established in the 19th century and earlier were applied with varying degrees of precision well into the late 20th century. But the market for labour does not wait for parliaments or courts. While changes in the types and styles of employment have been recognised to a limited extent by the various industrial commissions through awards and agreements, the pace of change continues to quicken.

    This book recognises that the acceleration in change means that decades of labour law jurisprudence are being relegated on a continuing basis to the file marked ‘of historical interest’. Knowledge of the interstices of interstate industrial disputes or the effect of ambit claims was once an essential part of an industrial lawyer's armoury. After the WorkChoices case, the thousands of pages devoted to those matters are now consigned to the dusty shelves of unvisited libraries.

  • Chapter 9 - Emerging issues and new frontiers

  • Louise Floyd, James Cook University, North Queensland, William Steenson, University of Technology Sydney, Amanda Coulthard, Bond University, Queensland, Daniel Williams, Anne C. Pickering, University of Queensland
  • Book:
    Employment, Labour and Industrial Law in Australia
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 November 2017, pp 392-424

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Most of this book has dealt with labour and employment law insofar as it applies to Australians in Australia. There is every justification for that. Most people still work in one country or for an employer based in one country – and live their lives centred on a community.

    However, times are changing. Not infrequently, corporations operate transnationally; there are global supply chains; and an employee based in one country may transfer to an overseas office of their employer. Such developments raise numerous questions, ranging from how the law balances the power of the global corporation with that of the local worker, through to how a conflict of laws may be resolved in a particular instance. As Professor Ewing recently observed, to neglect transnational labour law is an ‘extraordinary omission, given the impact of globalisation on workers’ rights and the power of global capital. Extraordinary too, in light of the developing body of principles, rules and practices regulating transnational corporations.’

    Parallel to those changes in the basic nature of work and the law, there are further developments around the manner in which work is performed. Not infrequently, volunteers will perform important work (in sometimes dangerous places), and issues may arise as to whether there is an employment relationship there at all. Beyond that, some people are watching a world in which their very job seems to be disappearing with the advent of new technology and automation.

    Indeed, labour and employment law face many emerging issues and new frontiers – and this chapter discusses those:

  • • Issue 1: Transnational and international labour and employment law issues. As observed in Chapter 3, there has always been a tension between international trade and labour. Likewise, there has long been a study of the influence one country's laws might have on the employment laws of another. The advent of large transnational corporations and global supply chains beg questions as to how best to develop such transnational and international labour laws. Solutions may rest in corporate codes of conduct and regional trading agreements, as well as International Labour Organization (ILO) treaties and international law suits. Transnational labour law seeks to extend beyond the nation state, yet relies on nation states contributing to its development and enforcement.

Page 48 of 94