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.
The FWO has won its first "serious contravention" penalties three years after the provisions were added to the Fair Work Act, a café and its former general manager fined a total of $230,000 on their second visit to court for underpaying workers.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has made scant use of new powers it won three years ago to conduct compulsory interviews and to prosecute franchisors to help to protect vulnerable workers.
A 61-year-old former economics professor has been fined $31,000 for underpaying two visa holders employed at a Korean grocery, a court finding he deliberately arranged for them to receive as little as $10 an hour.
An accountancy firm that created and gave the FWO false records covering up a massage parlour's underpayments must pay more per breach than the family-run employer, which has been fined about 10% of the penalties sought by the workplace watchdog.
The FWO is urging 7-Eleven to enter into a second compliance deed, following "substantial improvements" to payroll and time-recording systems and audits leading to backpayments of more than $102,000 under its first arrangement.
The ABCC is investigating stoppages at five Sydney building projects overseen by two builders ahead of possible protected industrial action ballots by members of the CFMMEU, which is pursuing a new pattern agreement.
The AEC has confirmed that candidates for leadership positions in the Flight Attendants' Association's new unified structure have been elected unopposed, making Teri O'Toole its first federal secretary in control of international and domestic assistant secretaries.
The Registered Organisations Commission has spent up to 42% of its recent work time responding to questions on notice from Labor's Senator Kimberley Kitching, according to one of its senior officers.
Despite suspending field-based work due to COVID-19, the FWO's annual report reveals it has more than tripled the amount recovered for workers and significantly increased its compliance activities after revising its strategy.
