A full Federal Court has reproached a State employment tribunal member for his tardiness in determining appropriate penalties for an underpaying employer, suggesting that had no fine been imposed it might have been spared considering an unremarkable appeal involving "modest" sums.
A court has penalised an early learning centre that refused on the basis of an alleged threat to its workers' "health and wellbeing" to allow a union organiser use its staff room to hold discussions, directing her instead to a storage room.
A court has ordered that the Fair Work Ombudsman refund company directors any restitution made to former employees if the regulator is unable to track them down within 28 days.
Unions and employer groups have been warned over claims that cars are being sold below market value to deliver "windfall gains" to employees, officials and third parties.
A Federal Court full court majority has given a broad meaning to a section in the Fair Work Act's general protections that says employees must be "able to complain" to establish a breach of their workplace rights.
A former Melbourne Water advisor is accusing the utility of forcing him to take domestic violence leave and failing to provide a promised permanent job after he disclosed that he was experiencing family violence.
A judge has today accepted the ABCC's view that the construction union's lengthy rap sheet should influence the penalty for a relatively minor breach, but has declined to impose a personal payment order on the official involved.
A full Federal Court has largely dismissed the CFMMEU's broad-ranging appeal against more than $300,000 in fines imposed for attempting to force a contractor into signing a union-approved deal, agreeing only that publication orders served no purpose and that too much was made of an "eenie meenie miney mo!" text message.
In a case highlighting the dangers of failing to engage with underpayments cases, an employer who did not respond to a claim it short-changed a teenage worker by $8000 must now pay him an additional $240,000 in penalties.
