Contract, Labour Law and the Realities of Working Life

By: Eugene Schofield-Georgeson

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Synopsis: This book offers a critical and timely account of how labour law has become a means for protecting employers rather than workers.The past few decades have witnessed something of a ‘silent revolution’ in the traditional protective role that labour law has played in the lives of workers. While this transformation has been overt in the realm of the market and at the level of the legislature, the role of the judiciary in this process remains significantly under-studied. Focussing on Australia, but drawing also on material from New Zealand, the UK and Canada, this book investigates how the common law has intervened to shape labour law in the image of commercial contract, determining disputes and defining legal issues by ignoring the realities of working life. Under this new conception of labour law, industrial relations between workers and employers are rarely reciprocal or relational. Rather, they are determined by the legal meaning and purpose of the contract of employment, drafted by lawyers for the benefit of employers and their human resources departments. Having demonstrated how approaches to contractual formalist legal reasoning have redefined labour law, this book goes on to propose an array of innovative legal and policy strategies to restore the protective role of labour law to the employment relationship.Scholarly, but also accessible to students, this book will appeal to those with interests in labour law, contract law and sociolegal studies.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9781040086667
Related ISBNs:: 9781040086636, 9781003376750, 9781032453941
Publisher:: Taylor & Francis
Date of Addition:: 07/05/24
Copyrighted By:: Eugene Schofield-Georgeson, The right of Eugene Schofield-Georgeson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Business and Finance, Law, Legal Issues and Ethics, Sociology
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.