In a momentous ruling on unions' liability for officials' breaches, a full Federal Court has upheld a finding that the CFMMEU was "knowingly concerned" in organisers' refusal to show permits when entering a site to discuss safety issues.
IR Minister Christian Porter has confirmed he will not intervene in an ASX-listed company's bid to restructure in a way that relies on the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme to pay redundancy entitlements, saying many more will lose jobs without it.
In a decision underlining the perils faced by workers who are not covered by awards or enterprise agreements, the FWC has found an employer had no statutory obligation to consult an employee about its plans to make him redundant.
The Federal Court has penalised the CFMMEU and three construction division WA branch officials $180,000 for organising a half-day strike in 2018 over redundancy pay for Perth Airport rail link workers, 39 of whom also copped $4000 fines.
The High Court will next month hear two special leave applications challenging findings that, in considering ordinary turnover of labour, employees' reasonable expectation of continuing work helps determine their entitlement to redundancy pay.
The CFMMEU says that raids by the AFP on its Sydney offices and other premises today involve "investigations under the Fair Work Act and related matters".
Multinational cosmetics company Lush has backpaid workers almost $4.5 million and entered into an enforceable undertaking with the FWO after the lack of an HR department and training, along with a moribund manual payroll system, led to widespread underpayments.
A court has revived a former national swim coach's underpayment claims, granting him leave to challenge a finding that an award did not cover his role.