LA4020 - Employment, Workplace and Industrial Relations Law

Employment Law is one of the most interesting, important and topical legal disciplines. This course covers the main elements of employment and labour law, key issues and emerging questions. In particular, the course deals with: Common law employment contract; restraint of trade; duties of good faith of employers and employees; enterprise bargaining; National Employment Standards and the No Disadvantage Test; Industrial Relations Commission and The Australian Fair Pay Commission; Trade Union Law (freedom of association and strikes); unfair dismissal; the Constitutional challenge into work choices; and the new employment reforms aligned with co-operative federalism and Fair Work Australia.

Learning Outcomes

• the aim of this course is to teach the key elements of labour and employment law, its main issues and emerging questions so that students have a good working knowledge of the discipline at both a theoretical/academic and practical level;
• the subject will be taught in such as way as to develop in students their skills for research, writing, analysis discussion;
• at the end of this subject, students will have developed skills of using the main labour law online and hard copy resources and data bases. They will have developed skills in advising on industrial relations problems that can arise through analysis of factual scenarios; and they will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the legal philosophies of labour law through their discussion of recent developments. These skills will be demonstrated through eg the assessment. The assignment will eg develop research and analysis skills and the examination will also eg demonstrate legal problem solving skills.

Subject Assessment

• end of semester exam (60%)
• tutorial attendance and participation (10%)
• assignments (30%).

Note: Minor variations might occur due to the continuous Subject quality improvement process, and in case of minor variation(s) in assessment details, the Subject Outline represents the latest official information.