Two franchisee directors of a Chatime bubble tea store have had most of their underpayment penalties suspended after a court accepted they acted on their franchisor's advice that they could pay age-based flat rates.
A judge who took exception to a business being liquidated during an underpayment case was entitled to impose heavier penalties on the owners than sought by the FWO, an appeal court has found.
In a significant ruling clarifying how penalties for multiple contraventions should be assessed, a full Federal Court has in cutting by more than half a $445,000 fine imposed on the CEPU rejected a judge's "global" approach to the historic reporting breaches.
The AWU is seeking to delete a decade-old pieceworker provision in the horticulture award that it claims leaves affected workers with no safety net and substandard rates of pay.
A new McKell Institute report recommends that the Morrison Government implement a national labour-hire licensing scheme, remove entry barriers to enable inspections by unions and redesign the visa system to curb widespread exploitation and wage theft in fruit-picking.
With the WGEA blaming "gender equality fatigue" for a substantial drop in employers taking action on pay equity, new research suggests "tired" managers' lack of understanding and ownership is impeding their ability to drive change.
Multinational cosmetics company Lush has backpaid workers almost $4.5 million and entered into an enforceable undertaking with the FWO after the lack of an HR department and training, along with a moribund manual payroll system, led to widespread underpayments.
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.
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.
A restaurant unfairly dismissed a 457-visaholder cook who had an imposter sit his English competency test and secretly recorded conversations after reporting it for alleged exploitation, the FWC has held.
