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.
A full Federal Court has warned against "hypothetical postulation" in refusing to say whether it can make a common fund order on conclusion of a class action brought by 7-Eleven franchisees, while suggesting it could still happen if considered just.
An FWC full bench has rejected on public interest grounds a two-years-late AMWU bid to challenge the approval of a construction company's deal with two workers.
The National Library of Australia has avoided becoming the second federal public body forced to make a "contrition payment" to the FWO, after admitting to underpaying casual employees almost $250,000 over two decades.
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 FWC has in varying 97 awards to address casuals' overtime payments rejected employer arguments that its application of a compounding formula in the aged care sector contradicts the "widely accepted" proposition that penalties should not be applied to loadings.
The ACTU will soon release an online workers' survey which will be used to identify elements of a union claim for "working from home rights", while helping to "frame" the public debate.
The FWC has counted a Rio Tinto worker's $20,000-plus remote area travel allowance as earnings that pushed her total income beyond the $153,600 cap for unfair dismissal claims.
