Queensland employers facing millions of dollars in backpay claims are calling on the Federal Court to quash an FWC full bench decision that apprentices' pay should be measured against the more generous federal award rather than the state award when conducting the BOOT.
An accountancy firm that knowingly failed to maintain current award rates of pay in its MYOB payroll system has been found accessorially liable for an employer's underpayments.
As the FWC calls for submissions on an employer bid to ditch the term "penalty rates" and replace it with "additional remuneration", a senior union-clientele lawyer is warning of a "slippery slope" if recognition of a need to compensate those working unsociable hours is removed.
The TWU will oppose the approval of what it alleges is a substandard ground-handling agreement put forward by a company within the Emirates airlines group that offers workers 60 hours' work per month with no weekly guarantee.
Mining giant Thiess has had a proposed enterprise agreement knocked back because it was not genuinely agreed, with the FWC finding the company chose the three employees who participated in the ballot to "manipulate" the result.
FWC President Iain Ross has asked a full bench to review abandonment of employment clauses in six modern awards after a recent ruling that employers must take the "additional step" of ending the employment relationship when a worker walks off the job.
The Retail and Fast Food Workers Union says it has dozens of Bakers Delight agreements in its sights in today's first application to terminate an expired deal it alleges leaves some workers more than $2000 a year worse off than under the award.
The Senate economics committee is due to report today on its review of the "backpacker tax" bills, under which employers will be placed on a public register that the FWO can access to ensure they are complying with IR laws.
The FWO has used accessorial liability provisions to secure substantial penalties across the chain of command of a frozen yoghurt franchise responsible for underpaying four overseas workers.
