The Australian Charter of Employment Rights: The missing dimensions

Standing, Guy

Abstract

Just prior to the 2007 General Election, a group of labour lawyers and economists, broadly sympathetic to the Labor Party, produced a Charter of Employment Rights. This article examines the Charter's proposals and its underlying framework, and suggests significant aspects of work and labour have been omitted. It contends that the Charter would have been improved if it had not retained an artificially stretched definition of workers as employees, in which the only relationship worthy of inclusion in a Charter is that between the direct employer and employee. The framework and language of the Charter convey a paternalistic approach and an outdated focus on industrial labour, while ignoring aspects of the emerging global system of work linked to the concept of occupation.

Citation

Standing, G. (2008). The Australian Charter of Employment Rights: The missing dimensions. Journal of Industrial Relations, 50(2), 355-366. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185607087908

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2008
• Deposit Date: Mar 13, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 13, 2013
• Journal: Journal of Industrial Relations
• Print ISSN: 0022-1856
• Electronic ISSN: 1472-9296
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 50
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 355-366
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185607087908
• Keywords: labour law, labor law, work rights, labour markets, labor markets, Australia
• Publisher URL: http://jir.sagepub.com/content/50/2/355.abstract