The National Library of Australia has avoided becoming the second federal public body forced to make a "contrition payment" to the FWO, after admitting to underpaying casual employees almost $250,000 over two decades.
The FWC has used the further extension of COVID-19-related flexibilities in the clerks award to advance its campaign for enduring changes in working-from-home arrangements, calling on employers and unions to report back on possible variations to address the issue by early next month.
Qantas is considering a challenge to a Federal Court interpretation today of JobKeeper payment rules that will require it to backpay employees who received penalty rates in arrears while covered by the wage subsidy scheme.
Qantas has launched a Federal Court case against the FAAA to clarify whether it can keep paying fortnightly penalty rates in arrears while receiving JobKeeper, as the ASU accuses it of "stealing" by counting them against the wrong top-up period.
The CFMMEU is preparing to grill employer bodies over their push for temporary COVID-19 variations to construction awards, which is set to be heard by an FWC full bench next week.
The SDA has failed to head off a double whammy for retail workers whose Sunday penalty rates fall this week despite a delay to minimum wage increases, after an FWC full bench found there was no presumption they should be aligned.
Some retail and pharmacy workers will be more than $4,000 worse off per year when the latest reduction in penalty rates takes effect today, according to new analysis by the Parliamentary Library.
In the FWO's first "contrition payment" extracted from another federal public body, the ABC has agreed to pay $600,000 and enter into an enforceable undertaking after admitting it underpaid 1900 past and current employees more than $12 million.
A full Federal Court has reproached a State employment tribunal member for his tardiness in determining appropriate penalties for an underpaying employer, suggesting that had no fine been imposed it might have been spared considering an unremarkable appeal involving "modest" sums.