The SDA has hit a major hurdle in its efforts to expand upon an underpayments court victory, the FWC refusing to order Aldi to provide six years of rosters, pay records and timesheets for almost 13,000 employees the union claims might have been shortchanged for work performed outside their shifts.
A court has limited to about $100,000 the fines it has imposed on an underpaying, now-shuttered labour hire company after accepting that it unintentionally broke the law and that its embarrassed founder is "appropriately remorseful".
The CFMMEU's mining and energy division is taking credit for BHP's revelation today that it will have to backpay almost 30,000 workers in its Australian operations it has shortchanged since 2010, with its share set to cost it $431 million.
Underpaying employers could face fines of more than $4 million or three times the sum involved, while individuals such as directors and HR managers could face imprisonment and penalties up to $825,000 per breach under further wage theft reforms being considered by the Albanese Government.
A dumpling chain's HR manager was knowingly concerned in its Fair Work Act contraventions and "did not simply act as a conduit", the Federal Court has held in a liability judgment, finding she also instructed and trained a colleague in a payroll scam using both accurate and inaccurate records.
The FSU has launched a Federal Court test case against NAB over alleged unreasonable additional working hours in what the union warns is "just the start" for the industry.
A judge irked by a multinational company's attempt to cast its underpaying subsidiary's award breaches as the court's "alternate interpretation" has imposed a near-maximum fine.
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.
A court has fined the director of a Japanese restaurant almost $25,000 after finding that he "reverse engineered" pay records provided to the FWO and asked a shortchanged employee not to "sell me out".
A former economics professor's troubled relationship with workplace laws has continued, after a court accepted that he "actively" managed an underpaying grocery store previously fined for similar breaches.
