International and Comparative Perspectives on Jamsek and Personnel Consulting (April 2022)
CELRL Labour Law Seminar
Seminar presented by:
Professor Alan Bogg (University of Bristol) and
Professor Sean Cooney (University of Melbourne)
Tuesday 7 April 2022
About the event
In this panel discussion, Professor Alan Bogg and Professor Sean Cooney presented on ZG Operations v Jamsek and CFMMEU v Personnel Contracting, the plurality judgments of the High Court of Australia endorsed a contract-centric approach to characterising work relationships. These decisions explicitly reject the ‘primacy of fact’ approach adopted in jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, along with a consideration of bargaining power and statutory purposes.
This panel session critiques the High Court’s approach from an international and comparative perspective, contrasting it in particular with the jurisprudence in the United Kingdom and with instruments of the International Labour Organization.
View the seminar recording
About the speakers
For fourteen years, Alan was a fellow of Hertford College, Oxford and latterly Professor of Labour Law at the University of Oxford. In 2017 he moved to the University of Bristol where he now teaches employment law. He writes on all areas of labour law, and he has a particular interest in judicial reasoning. In recognition of his scholarship, he was awarded the Peter Birks Prize in 2010 and the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Law in 2014. His recent work includes a co-edited volume, Criminality at Work, and Landmark Cases in Labour Law is due to be published by Hart-Bloomsbury in November 2022. His academic work has been cited by the UK Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the EAT, the European Court of Justice, and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Sean Cooney's research interests concern international and comparative labour and employment law, with a focus on Asia. He has worked on new approaches to improving international working standards, including on Australian Research Council-funded collaborative projects on Chinese labour law reform; enforcement in Australia; and assessing the effect of legal change in several Asia-Pacific countries. He has published articles in major refereed law journals in the United States, China and Australia. Between 2014 and 2016, Sean served as a Legal Specialist in the Labour Law and Reform Unit at the International Labour Organization in Geneva, where he provided advice to governments in countries such as China, India, Myanmar and Pakistan. He continues to consult for the ILO. Sean speaks Mandarin Chinese, French and German. He studied at the University of Melbourne and Columbia University and also spent several years as a lawyer practising mainly in the areas of employment and administrative law.