A university study of international students' employment conditions in food services shows they are receiving as little as $8 an hour and a median of $17, well below the award rate of about $21.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has warned accessorial liability for workplace breaches is now being extended beyond employers and company directors to those working in human resources, management and recruitment.
A contractor "knowingly involved" in underpaying vulnerable supermarket trolley collectors and a subcontractor who "deliberately" produced false payment records and underpaid employees have been fined more than $90,000 by the Federal Court.
A court has ordered a 7-Eleven franchisee to pay a $150,000 penalty for deliberately underpaying employees and using a "reverse calculation" regime to cover its tracks.
A court has levied a fine of more than $270,000 on a company that made an employee work 180 unpaid hours as an intern, and has also imposed a $8160 fine and three-year injunction on its director, who was already bound by an enforceable undertaking.
A Turnbull Coalition Government, if returned at the July 2 election, will amend the Fair Work Act to make franchisors and parent entities responsible for their franchisees' and subsidiaries' exploitation of vulnerable workers, while increasing penalties tenfold for employers that underpay such workers and fail to keep proper records.
Convenience store chain 7-Eleven is ending the Fels Panel's oversight of its process for rectifying systematic underpayments to franchisee employees and moving the task to what it says is an independent internal unit.
FWC's interest-based dispute resolution approach reaches new stage; Shorten Government would intervene in penalties case; Visa cases now the lion's share of FWO prosecutions; Budget Estimates hearings brought forward; Labor bid to disallow regulation postponed to Wednesday; and Slaters wins new finance deal.
Two companies and their director that underpaid two Indian citizens and engaged in sham contracting and adverse action have been ordered to pay $200,000 in penalties and compensation.