Smith on Regulatory Reform for Equality Laws to Address Work-Family Conflict

Belinda Smith (Sydney Law) has posted on SSRN her forthcoming piece in the Sydney Law Review entitled: Not the Baby and the Bathwater - Regulatory Reform for Equality Laws to Address Work-Family Conflict.

From the abstract:

With the Work Choices transformation of the Australian industrial relations landscape we have seen the federal government confirm that it is not willing to regulate for family-friendly worker entitlements or workplace conditions directly, instead relying upon market and social forces to deliver outcomes within a decentralised regulatory framework. If we acknowledge the current political reality that legislation and awards are not likely to be used to establish family-friendly work conditions such as part-time and flexible hours, paid parental leave and family leave, what alternative regulatory mechanisms are available?

Given the gender dimension of work-family conflict, our federal sex equality laws - Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) and Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 (Cth) - have proven to be of some use in prompting greater family-friendliness in workplaces. However, the regulatory tools offered by these laws are not up to the task. In this article, I draw on new regulatory scholarship to explain the weaknesses of our current equality laws, and then to propose a new regulatory model that holds promise for better prompting, facilitating and holding accountable corporate initiatives to establish sustainable, family-friendly work environments.

This piece makes clear that Australia is dealing with many of the same workplace flexibility issues that we are currently seeking to address here in the United States.  It is always a useful exercise to consider comparative law pieces such as this one to get further insight into how we might better our own employment laws.

PS