Book Review: Employment Law – an outline 2nd Edition

By Natalie van der Waarden

Published by Lexis Nexis

Reviewed by Dominic Katter

The second edition of Employment Law — an outline is a 2010 update to the 2004 first edition. The first edition of this work pre-dated the ‘WorkChoices amendments’ to the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth). The 2004 first edition was itself a successor to Outline of Employment Law by Wallace-Bruce (Second Edition, 1999). Although the second edition of this work includes numerous references to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), it focuses on the contractual elements of employment, rather than being an annotated work to the applicable legislation. Therefore, this work, is structured differently from other employment law texts, such as Stewart’s Guide to Employment Law (second edition 2009, Federation Press).

Natalie van der Waarden is a lecturer in commercial law at the Murdoch University’s Business School. The author was previously the president of the Industrial Relations Society of Western Australia. The author has also published as to the Regulation of Child Employment in Western Australia.

The text provides a general overview of case law, entering into more detail on specific topics like the formation of employment contracts, as well as the mutual responsibilities of employers and employees. The text is logically set out and rarely taxing to read. Each chapter commences with an overview of the key topics to be conversed, and is clearly delineated with numerous headings throughout. Chapters conclude with revision questions, as well as further readings. The text is primarily designed as a recommended text for university business students.

Like the first edition, the text contains numerous summaries of relevant cases, making the work a one-stop point of reference as to common law principles for students without prior experience in legal study. The challenge for the reader is to identify where Fair Work Act provisions override principles articulated in this work, in circumstances where the text itself does not identify all statutory standards. The book seamlessly discusses equitable, tortuous and contractual principles within areas of employment law such as ‘industrial action’. The benefit of the text is that it persuades the reader to engage directly and immediately with legal precedent, rather than consider general principles and case law separately.

Although the text is particularly suitable for human resources and business students, it does provide an initial point of reference for professionals seeking to begin research in an area in which they have limited existing knowledge. The text is relatively reasonably priced and remains a relevant articulation of applicable law, particularly as to workers not subject to the ‘Fair Work’ legislation.