Developments in Contract of Employment Jurisprudence in Other Common-Law Jurisdictions

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores and amplifies the themes of this work by some comparative reflections from Australia, a common-law jurisdiction with roots in English law, but an idiosyncratic history of collective labour market regulation. Australian courts have developed the common law of the employment contract, in response to doctrinal developments in English law and under similar socio-economic conditions, but also within the peculiar context of Australia’s own political and industrial history. In Australia, a well-developed legislatively mandated system of industrial conciliation and arbitration (including unfair dismissal arbitration) administered by industrial tribunals exercising administrative but not judicial power, has given rise to a disjunction between statutory workplace law and the common law of the contract of employment. The common-law courts’ concern to maintain coherence between these separate forms of regulation has led to the maintenance of a strongly traditional form of employment contract law, largely indistinguishable from general commercial contract law.