The Fair Work Ombudsman is frustrated it is failing to secure "any real commitment" from Caltex on a "compliance partnership" to handle underpayments by franchisees, despite being in talks for 18 months.
A tribunal has penalised the operator of a string of Adelaide massage parlours who said he refused to keep records and provide pay slips because he was "too busy and lazy".
Woolworths says it will train head contractors on their IR obligations, require all cleaning contractors to use a third-party payroll system and increase its auditing, after an FWO investigation revealed the retailer contributed to a culture of non-compliance in its Tasmanian cleaning supply chain.
The FWO has again taken a bead on union behaviour, confirming today that it is investigating industrial action at the Oaky North mine in Queensland, where about 190 workers remain locked out after more than 200 days.
The FWO's costly pursuit of a cleaning company over inadvertent underpayments of $5200 over a nine-month period has drawn fire from a judge who questioned the "limited need for deterrence" in a case where Fair Work Act objectives could have been met through enforceable undertakings.
An employer could face a ninefold increase in fines ordered by the Federal Circuit Court after the FWO successfully appealed the judgment on the basis that it wrongly grouped contraventions as a single course of action.
The FWO is investigating protests at Melbourne's Webb Dock during the MUA's dispute with stevedore VICT which, despite Victorian Supreme Court cease-orders, continued until the worker's temporary reinstatement last Friday.
The High Court has refused a group of companies special leave to appeal a judgment in which they were found liable for underpaying workers by more than $1 million.
In a ruling that underlines the Fair Work Ombudsman's pursuit of accessorial liability against advisors, a court has for the first time imposed a fine on an accountancy firm involved in an employer's underpayments.
