Employment standards page 46 of 47

A long history of employee complaints and the need to send a strong message to the hair and beauty industry that "it does not pay to underpay workers" has led to a hairdressing chain being fined $70,000 for short-changing an apprentice more than $8,000.

Supermarket giant Coles will conduct random wage audits of its trolley collection contractors, back pay 10 employees more than $220,000 and establish a $500,000 fund for any future underpayment claims, as part of an agreement with the Fair Work Ombudsman that acknowledges the company's "ethical and moral responsibility" to look after workers on its sites.

In what four judges agree is an "extraordinary case" involving a "spectacularly bad witness" and a "serial fraudster", a Swan Hill shop assistant will keep almost half a million dollars in back pay and interest after a full Federal Court confirmed that she had not agreed to work for nothing.

Giving teenage employees free and discounted pizzas and soft drink instead of wages – a practice belonging "in the dark ages rather than twenty first century Australia" – has cost a pizza franchise operator $335,000 in fines.

A finance broking house that issued a Brisbane-based employee five payslips in six years and employed him on a commission-based agreement that it believed did not entitle him to base salary, sick pay, annual leave and superannuation entitlements has been ordered to pay him almost $124,000 in penalties.

The federal government's decision as part of its "red tape" repeal campaign to rescind the IR guidelines for government cleaning contracts suggests it is "willing to turn a blind eye to labour law non-compliance by its own contractors", according to a procurement expert, Melbourne Law School associate professor John Howe.

A court has today delivered a "wake-up call" to Toyota Material Handling and its HR department for breaches of IR laws that included making a false declaration to the Fair Work Ombudsman, drawing to a close five years of litigation that included a full Federal Court ruling on a time limit that had threatened to derail the case.

The Federal Court has found that shifting seasonal workers to a new employer after they'd worked 40 hours a week was a "sham" arrangement to avoid paying overtime.

A new paper recommends changes to the Fair Work Act to provide stronger protections for students undertaking vocational placements and work experience, suggesting they have become the new "phenomenon" of the workplace in the 21st century following the casualisation of the 1980s and 1990s.

The Federal Court has stayed a $300,000 Federal Magistrates Court penalties and backpay order against a call centre, while imposing a conditional security payment, acknowledging the employer's chances of a successful appeal are "not strong".