Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law - University of ...

Centre for Employment and Labour Relations LawGoals of the Centre for Employment andLabour Relations LawThe Centre for Employment and Labour RelationsLaw was established in the Faculty of Law in1994. Its broad aims are to consolidate theteaching of, and research into, labour and employmentlaw at the University of Melbourne, to contribute to thedevelopment of labour and employment law teachingand research throughout Australia, and to engagewith labour and employment law scholars throughoutthe world. Centre Members are responsible forteaching labour and employment law subjects in theundergraduate and graduate programs in the Faculty ofLaw, with the graduate program leading to both MastersDegrees and Graduate Diplomas specialising in labourand employment law.Centre Members in 2009Associate Professor John Howe (Director), Ms AnnaChapman, Associate Professor Sean Cooney, Ms TessaDermody (Coordinator), Associate Professor Beth Gaze,Associate Professor Colin Fenwick, Mr Glenn Patmore,Mr Stephen Sempill (untill June 2009), Dr Joo-CheongTham.ResearchThe Centre is Australia's first and only research centredevoted exclusively to developing an understanding ofthe role and function of legal regulation of the labourmarket. Research in the Centre generally takes placewithin broad and ongoing research frameworks.These frameworks include:• Law and Labour Market Regulation;• Reform of Australian Labour Law; and• International and Comparative Labour LawCentre members during 2009 pursued a numberof more specific research projects within theparameters of these three broad researchprograms. These are (listed in alphabetical order):• Employee Happiness and Labour Law• Employee share Ownership Plans: CurrentPractice and Regulatory Reform• Employment Rights of International Students:Enhancing protection through a communityuniversitycollaboration• Improving the Effectiveness of Australia's Anti-Discrimination Laws• Labour Regulation in East Asia• Law and Labour MarketRegulation in SouthernAfrica• New Initiatives in Enforcing EmploymentStandards: Assessing the Effectiveness ofFederal Goverment Compliance Strategies• 'Nothing Can Be Created Out of Nothing':Workers, Their Know-How and the EmploymentRelationships that Support Them• Security of Employment and Unfair DismissalLaw• What the Social Inclusion Agenda Means forthe Integration of Labour Market Regulationand Social Policy• Work, Care and Family: Revealing andReconstituting Legal NormsConferences/SeminarsLabour Law Seminar SeriesThese free public seminars are intended to be ofinterest to a wide audience including academics,members of the legal profession, and those engagedin the day to day business of industrial relations and/or human resource management. Among other things,the Labour Law Seminar Series provides an opportunityfor Centre members, visitors and associates, togetherwith invited speakers, to present preliminary results59 Centres, Institutes and Groups 2009

of their research into the operations of labour andemployment law. Sean Cooney and John Howeco-ordinated the Labour Law Seminar Series during2009.Five seminars were held during the course of the year.• Ms Anna Chapman, Senior Lecturer, MelbourneLaw School and member of Centre for Employmentand Labour Relations Law on ‘Unfair DismissalLaw: From Work Choices to the Fair Work Act 2009’(22 April).• Ms Mary Gardiner, past Master of Labour RelationsLaw student at the Melbourne Law School on ‘HisMaster’s Voice? Work Choices as a Return to Masterand Servant Concepts’ (13 May).• Professor Judy Fudge, Lansdowne Chair inLaw, University of Victoria, Canada on ‘TemporaryForeign Workers in Canada: The Low-Skilled Stream’(27 August).• Dr Andrew Frazer, Senior Lecturer, Faculty ofLaw, University of Wollongong on ‘The RegulatoryParadigm in Australian Labour Law’ (4 November).• Professor Gordon Anderson, Faculty of Law,Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand on‘Change and Evolution in New Zealand EmploymentLaw’ (3 December).Sponsors’ Seminar SeriesThe Centre conducts a series of seminars for membersof the Centre’s sponsoring firms and organisations.Three seminars were held in 2009:• Mr Richard Niall, Victorian Bar on 'The Managementof Injured Workers: Can an Employer require anemployee to attend a Medical Examination?'(12 February).• Mr Nick Harrington, Victorian Bar on ‘Right of Entryand the Henny Penny Principle: is the sky a-going tofall?' (25 June).• Ms Natalie James, Workplace Relations LegalGroup, DEEWR on ‘The Fair Work Act: The first 12months’ (28 July).Roundtables and WorkshopsForum on the Proposed Building and ConstructionDivision of Fair Work Australia(26 February 2009)The Centre held a Forum on the Proposed Building andConstruction Division of Fair Work Australia at the LawSchool on Thursday 26 February 2009. The Forum washeld at the request of the Honourable Murray Wilcox,who was conducting an Inquiry into the ProposedBuilding and Construction Division on behalf of thefederal government. Justice Wilcox attended the Forumwhich was intended to assist him in preparing his finalreport.Book Launch and Panel Discussion: 'Fair Work: theNew Workplace Laws and the Work Choices Legacy'(6 May 2009)On Wednesday 6 May 2009 the Centre hosted thelaunch for the newly published book by FederationPress - 'Fair Work: The New Workplace Laws and theWork Choices Legacy' edited by Anthony Forsyth andAndrew Stewart.The book was launched by Commissioner Greg SmithAM (Australian Industrial Relations Commission), andwas followed by a panel presentation and an opportunityfor questions from the audience.General Protections in the Fair Work Act and AntidiscriminationWorkshop: Questions, Quirks andQuandaries(11 November 2009)The Centre hosted a workshop on Wednesday 11November which aimed to examine the interconnectionsbetween the new general protections provisions inthe Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and longer standing antidiscriminationregimes at the federal and State levels.The focus was on both broader policy questions of themeaning of discrimination in the workplace relationscontext, and questions of practice to do with choice ofjurisdiction and litigation strategy.Centres, Institutes and Groups 2009 60

Significant PublicationsPatmore, G, 'Choosing the Republic', University of NewSouth Wales Press, Australia (2009Centre Working Paper SeriesContact CELRLThe Centre's website can be accessed at:http://celrl.law.unimelb.edu.auThe Centre can be contacted by email at:law-celrl@unimelb.edu.auAnna Chapman edited the Centre Working Paper Seriesduring 2009, overseeing the publication of three issues:• Fudge J and MacPhail F, The TemporaryForeign Worker Program in Canada: Low-Skilled Workers as an Extreme Form ofFlexible Labour, Centre for Employmentand Labour Relations Law, The Universityof Melbourne, Working Paper No. 45,August 2009.• Chapman A, Employment Entitlementsto Carer’s Leave: Domesticating DiverseSubjectivities, Centre for Employmentand Labour Relations Law, The Universityof Melbourne, Working Paper No. 46,November 2009.• Andrades C, Intersections between‘General Protections’ under the Fair WorkAct 2009 (Cth) and Anti-Discrimination Law:Questions, Quirks and Quandaries, Centrefor Employment and Labour Relations Law,The University of Melbourne, WorkingPaper No. 47, December 2009.61 Centres, Institutes and Groups 2009