A massage business and its director must pay more than $2 million in fines and compensation after significantly short-changing temporary visa workers, subjecting them to a "cashback" scheme and threatening to kill their families if they blew the whistle.
A judge has warned the FWO of a possible "perception" it failed to comply with its model litigant obligations after dropping the "most serious" claim of threatening behaviour from a CFMEU right of entry case as part of a liability deal.
The HR manager of a dumpling chain fined $4 million over a "deceitful and unscrupulous" payroll scam has been hit with a $100,000 penalty for her role, after the Federal Court heard a big sanction might force her to sell her share of her home.
A court has accepted that Melbourne University threatened two casual workers that "if you claim outside your contracted hours don't expect work next year" and when one worker tried to claim five additional hours it refused to further engage her, calling her a "self-entitled Y-genner" on a "crusade behind the scenes".
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth will next week hold the first meeting of a new tripartite advisory group, as her organisation prepares for the new criminal penalties regime and "safe harbour" mechanisms for employers who transgress but are willing to lift their games.
A court has hit a former Indian High Commissioner with maximum fines for entrapping a worker in "powerless domestic servitude" in the guise of a diplomatic posting, paying her $9 daily to keep his palatial Canberra home 17.5 hours a day, seven days a week.
A worker who is accusing his employer of sacking him after he complained about his co-workers' alleged discriminatory behaviour - included calling him a "skippy poofter" and grabbing his genitalia - has failed to cap his potential maximum court costs at $30,000.
An accountancy firm and its principal must pay penalties totalling almost $70,000 for failing to comply with FWO notices to produce documents linked to to its client's "grossly inadequate" employee record-keeping.
A major fruit and vegetable grower defending one of the biggest workplace s-xual harassment and assault cases in Australia says it took "immediate steps" to remove the accused workers and it no longer employs them.