In a significant win for FWO efforts to extend liability to advisors involved in underpayments, a Full Federal Court has today dismissed an accountancy firm's appeal against penalties imposed last year for failing to ensure a client met its award obligations.
Security giant Wilson is within its rights to avoid paying penalty rates to security guards by allocating their overtime to Sundays, the Federal Court has ruled.
Employers are warning of "massive liability" and instability for all who engage casuals and unions say it could be harder to use labour hire to "drive down costs", after a full Federal Court upheld a finding that a labour hire casual was in fact an employee entitled to annual leave payments.
A restaurant that required a chef to work more than 20 unpaid hours a week and summarily sacked him when he sought to pare it back and take leave was "blissfully unaware" of its award obligations, the FWC has found.
In a ruling criticising the practice of diplomats recruiting domestic workers from overseas, the FWC has ordered Iraq's consul-general to pay $20,000 to a Filipina live-in nanny dismissed after raising concerns about her entitlements.
The Federal Court has fined a former Flight Attendants' Association international division secretary $2000 for failing to submit six years of the union's budgets and overpaying himself $16,000 in 2011, taking into account his cooperation and "genuine belief" he was entitled to the sum.
The Fair Work Ombudsman's prosecution of food delivery service Foodora has been followed by a landmark decision on the gig economy by the UK Supreme Court.
Two big international direct marketing companies exercised control over workers who were engaged as independent contractors to sell products or solicit donations to major corporations and charities, according to documents lodged with the Federal Court.
The Federal Court has ordered a company and its director to pay substantial fines for failing to pass on more than $11,000 in parental leave payments to a cook and then concealing their actions after the FWO began asking questions.
In rejecting as "absurd" the expert evidence of a forensic accountant who calculated that Ambulance Victoria owed an on-call media officer $800,000 in unpaid entitlements, the Federal Circuit Court has instead ordered the employer to pay her $155,000, including for time spent sleeping.
