Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 29 - Labour Law

  • from VI - Social Ordering
  • Edited by Peter Cane, University of Cambridge, Lisa Ford, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Mark McMillan
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Legal History of Australia
    Published online:
    04 August 2022
    Print publication:
    18 August 2022, pp 671-692

  • Summary

    This chapter recounts the history of labour law in Australia since colonisation. It identifies four key periods – the early convict period, the period of protective regulation; the compulsory arbitration and awards period, and the period of deregulation and the ‘gig’ economy. By taking in the earlier period of convict or penal labour, this framing departs from the conception of labour law as only emerging in the late nineteenth century with the contractual employment relationship. By taking it forward to the new economy of employment, the chapter follows labour law theorists seeking to expand and broaden the field to include all workers and their need for labour protections. Themes of freedom and unfreedom, trade union organisation, gender differentiation, race, immigration and Indigenous labour are threaded through as factors underlying the employment relationship and its changes over this long history. Characteristics of Australia’s system such as compulsory arbitration are shown as divergences in comparison with Britain and US