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.
The FWC has ordered a labour hire company to reinstate a worker to his former job at Carlton United Breweries, despite summarily sacking him over a safety incident after the client demanded his permanent removal.
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 major convenience chain operator slugged with almost $65,000 in penalties for the "brazen", "deliberate exploitation" of a console operator has hit back at a $70 million class action, denying claims and citing a lead applicant's alleged behavioural issues.
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.
A tribunal has upheld the revocation of a high school teacher's working with children authorisation after finding that while accusations and behaviours consistent with grooming had not been conclusively established, he continued to put himself in compromising situations.
Pauline Hanson's One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts has warned that his longstanding concerns over the treatment of casual coal mining workers could influence his vote on the Morrison Government's forthcoming IR Bill.
