“Labour Law is a Subset of Employment Law” Revisited

This article revisits the arguments in Brian Langille’s seminal law review article, “Labour Law is a Subset of Employment Law.” Langille’s article was based upon two main claims: (a) that (individual) employment law should be understood as the “set” and (collective) labour law the “subset” of employment law (the primacy of employment law); (b) that “public values” have priority over “private values” in the regulation of work (the primacy of public values). These two claims were presented as mutually reinforcing in “Subset.” Drawing on specific examples from UK and Canadian law, this article endorses the first claim but rejects the second. Public and private values intersect in a multiplicity of ways. It is too reductive to accord primacy to the “public”or the “private.” Employment law has always been a hybrid discipline shaped by public and private law. Dans le présent article, nous reprenons les arguments avancés dans le fameux article de Brian Langille, « Labour Law is a Subset of Employment Law .» Cet article présentait deux arguments principaux : a) que le droit de l’emploi (individuel) doit être compris comme « l’ensemble » et le droit du travail (collectif) comme le « sous-ensemble » du droit de l’emploi (la primauté étant accordée au droit de l’emploi); b) que les « valeurs publiques » ont la priorité sur les « valeurs privées » dans la réglementation du travail (la primauté étant accordée aux valeurs publiques). Ces deux revendications ont été présentées comme se renforçant mutuellement dans le « sous-ensemble .» En s’appuyant sur des exemples spécifiques du droit britannique et canadien, nous appuyons dans le présent article le premier argument mais rejetons le second. Les valeurs publiques et privées se croisent de multiples façons. Il est trop réducteur d’accorder la primauté au « public » ou au « privé .» Le droit de l’emploi travail a toujours été une discipline hybride façonnée par le droit public et le droit privé

Common Law and Statute in the Law of Employment

Remarkably, the interaction between common law and statute has not attracted the scholarly attention it deserves, given that it is such a basic component of legal reasoning in common law systems. This is especially true in the law of employment, where the interaction between common law and statute is a pervasive feature of modern employment law. In recent years, scholars have started to rise to the challenge of developing principles to regulate this interaction, and this article provides a contribution to those debates. It builds upon Lord Hoffmann’s controversial judgment in Johnson v Unisys to identify three modes of interaction: statute as pre-emptive of common law development; statute as an analogical stimulus of common law development; and common law fundamental rights. By connecting this analysis to background principles of legislative supremacy and fundamental rights, it argues that Johnson v Unisys provides an attractive constitutional vision of the relationship between Parliament and the courts

Segregation in a male-dominated industry: women working in the computer games industry

This paper focuses on occupational segregation within the games industry in terms of gender role identity and differences between female game workers in relation to their attitudes towards women’s career barriers and their own career progression and promotion. Women are both underrepresented in the games industry workforce as a whole and in certain roles within the industry. Women in the industry tend to be concentrated in more traditionally ‘feminine’ roles such as marketing and administration. Women are underrepresented in core creation and development roles, such as coders, designers and artists; roles that tend to require technical skill and knowledge. Using data extracted from a large study of female game workers, this study adds to the scarcity of research into the area of women working in the computer games industry. It would appear that occupational segregation still persists in this relatively new, male dominated industry. Findings suggest gender role identity and attitudes are important issues when looking at segregation within the industry. Implications for future research on the games industry are discussed

Reliable gains? Evidence for substantially underpowered designs in studies of working memory training transfer to fluid intelligence

In recent years, cognitive scientists and commercial interests (e.g., Fit Brains, Lumosity) have focused research attention and financial resources on cognitive tasks, especially working memory tasks, to explore and exploit possible transfer effects to general cognitive abilities, such as fluid intelligence. The increased research attention has produced mixed findings, as well as contention about the disposition of the evidence base. To address this contention, J. Au and colleagues (2014; doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0699-x) recently conducted a meta-analysis of extant controlled experimental studies of n-back task training transfer effects on measures of fluid intelligence in healthy adults; the results of which showed a small training transfer effect. Using several approaches, the current review evaluated and re-analyzed the meta-analytic data for the presence of two different forms of small-study effects: 1) publication bias in the presence of low power and; 2) low power in the absence of publication bias. The results of these approaches showed no evidence of selection bias in the working memory training literature, but did show evidence of small-study effects related to low power in the absence of publication bias. While the effect size estimate identified by Au and colleagues provided the most precise estimate to date, it should be interpreted in the context of a uniformly low-powered base of evidence. The present work concludes with a brief set of considerations for assessing the adequacy of a body of research findings for the application of meta-analytic techniques