Why WERRC?

As the name suggests a "rights approach" is located at the intellectual core of the proposed Centre. It is the combining of these notions that distinguishes the Centre from other employment related research centres elsewhere.

By a "rights approach" is meant a focus that accepts there is a clear difference between a right and a need. It accepts that the former is a claim to which a person is entitled solely by virtue of being a member of a specific community that is covered by the specified entitlement. In the case of human rights this community includes all human beings and with statutory rights the community is all those covered by the statute. A right can be enforced before the state and other sources of power and imposes an obligation on society to acknowledge and cater for the claim.

The concept of employment rights is generally associated with developing economies where the needs of industrialization, lack of enforceable statutory obligations on employers, poor worker organization and systemic corruption have all contributed to an environment in which the suppression of rights and the existence of exploitative work practices are widespread. Newly developing economies have in particular been associated with the denial of a basic social protection regime that can underpin employment relations, the denial of core labour rights that the international community recognises to be human rights, substandard working conditions, and the physical and psychological endangerment of people at work.

In the last decade, however, as many aspects of work and employment have changed in fundamental ways, the concept of rights has increasingly been applied to the domain of employment in the context of industrialized economies. This reflects a range of factors, not the least being:

• the changing structure and dynamics of work and employment;
• the decline in influence collective institutions such as trade unions;
• the growing hostility of employers to labour laws that limit their power to dominate the employment relationship;
• the globalization of production and distribution systems; and
• intensifying competition from newly industrializing economies that have been prepared to bypass procedures of social protection, collective bargaining and dispute settlement that are the norm across OECD countries.

In the Australian context, the last decade has witnessed a gradual removal of employment rights traditionally guaranteed under international covenants and treaties and by national labour laws. Most recently, the Welfare to Work legislation and the amendments to the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (as part of the Work Choices package of changes) have fundamentally diluted the capacity of workers to defend many rights previously taken as given. These rights include:

• the right to social support that enables people to undertake unpaid care work;
• the right to a minimum income and basic social and economic security;
• the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining;
• the right to strike;
• the right to be treated fairly at work (i.e., in a non-discriminatory manner);
• the right to a fair wage and conditions of work;
• the right to a basic income; and
• the right to participate in a range of decisions within and outside the workplace that affect the quality of working life.

In addition to these more traditional conceptions of employment rights, there are emerging concerns over the impacts of changes to the global division of labour, regulatory changes, and new employment and management practices. These include:

• surveillance and privacy in the workplace,
• declining income security,
• work intensification,
• bullying and stress, and
• the need to balance work and family obligations

At both state and national level, governments have looked to innovative regulatory arrangements to re-configure employment rights in ways which reflect these new realities and emerging concerns about employer, employee and employment-related rights.  For instance, the Victorian Government has recently established a new statutory office (the Workplace Rights Advocate) and promulgated a Workplace Rights Standard.

These issues have emerged as important concerns in most industrialized economies and reflect what is now an international debate concerning what constitutes the appropriate bundle of employment related rights that should prevail in any given situation.  This international concern is reflected in the establishment of similar research centres in other countries.  The current proposal is modelled on many aspects of the United Kingdom Institute of Employment Rights attached to Kings College, London and the Basic Income Network (BIEN) centred in Geneva.