This chapter provides an overview of the law regulating the employment relationship. The chapter touches on five key areas: 1. Sources of rights and obligations in the employment relationship; 2. Defining characteristics of the “employee” compared with an independent contractor; 3. Termination of employment; 4. Workplace health and safety; and 5. Registered industrial associations. The chapter is an introductory analysis of the most salient aspects of the legal relationship between the various parties to the employment relationship, focusing primarily on that of the employer and employee. The employment relationship is a complex but necessary part of any modern society, and throws up a number of important legal challenges – and, subsequently, solutions. The relationship involves a number of parties, both internal and external to the workplace. Amongst the external parties, the role of the government is particularly significant in determining how the employment relationship plays out, but amongst the macroeconomic and social factors influencing the roles of the employer and the employee there is one particularly influential new factor that the law is forced to take into account: technology. For example, the increasing use of email within work environments opens up new avenues for employee and employer misbehaviour, while at the same time providing a trail of evidence that can make the likelihood of legal intervention greater.