In the wake of the Albanese Government's recent appointment of a new FWC president, it has a further opportunity to reshape Fair Work institutions with the looming expiry of Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker's five-year term.
A judge has criticised the FWO for seeking "excessive" penalties against two restaurant businesses and reduced the penalties from the $250,000 the FWO sought to just $32,000 after it emerged that their director is broke and had been contemplating suicide.
The winding-up of the ROC early next month is set to trigger a compensation payment of about $130,000 for Registered Organisations Commissioner Mark Bielecki.
The Fair Work Ombudsman will not automatically respond to complaints or requests for assistance about commercial construction matters by conducting site visits, the watchdog told a Senate committee last night.
Some Australian universities have engaged in "passive resistance" when questioned over employee underpayments and record-keeping, according to Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker.
The Albanese Government will be able to make substantial progress on its promise of "rebalancing" the FWC, after the tribunal confirmed today that it has funding for 13 new members, or a quarter of its primary appointments.
In what it claims is its first litigation seeking to have a holding company found responsible for its subsidiaries' breaches, the FWO has initiated court action against ASX-listed Super Retail Group for self-reported underpayments of more than $1 million that led to an internal audit and backpayments exceeding $50 million that the watchdog says remain short of the mark.
As ROC staff await their transfer to the FWC, the watchdog has found that a former AEU ACT branch secretary did not improperly use his position, while it is also pursuing the AWU and a CFMMEU mining and energy division Queensland district leader in the Federal Court.
