The construction IR watchdog has vowed to closely police major infrastructure projects as Australia emerges from the pandemic, even as the number of enquiries about unlawful industrial action has plummeted by 65% over the past financial year.
A five-member full Federal Court has today warned judges against allowing "moral judgements" to intrude when they are imposing penalties, in overturning heavy fines for a CFMMEU "no ticket, no start" transgression after a judicial officer took the wrong approach to its "recidivist" history of contraventions.
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.
The FWC has issued a new entry permit to an AMOU organiser who claimed his COVID-19-related workload twice led to him inadvertently using an expired ticket when he visited members on offshore vessels.
An FWC bench has on the basis of representative error allowed a late unfair dismissal application after noting how thoroughly the employee pursued her claim, remarking "if only her solicitor had been as diligent".
The Federal Court has put the brakes on the $1.9 million settlement of a $65 million class action against marketing agency Appco, noting it would leave more than 1000 former fundraisers with "diddly squat" after the litigation funder takes half.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a patrolling council worker accused of "time fraud", despite finding that her supervisor was "asleep at the wheel" in overlooking GPS data revealing that she regularly started late and visited her partner's home during work hours.
The Berejiklian Government needs to pressure its federal counterpart over gig economy minimum wages and conditions and regulate the use of workplace surveillance and data, according to a Unions NSW submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the future of work.
