Two landmark class actions allege that a BHP Billiton subsidiary induced two labour hire companies to unlawfully engage hundreds of coal mineworkers as casuals and pay them less than the industry award.
A full Federal Court has today ushered in a new age in which union officials are held personally liable for breaching IR laws, ordering a CFMMEU organiser to pay almost $20,000 from his own pocket for his role in disrupting work at a construction site in 2013.
The Federal Court has fined a former Flight Attendants' Association international division secretary $2000 for failing to submit six years of the union's budgets and overpaying himself $16,000 in 2011, taking into account his cooperation and "genuine belief" he was entitled to the sum.
A judge has today comprehensively rejected an FWO attempt to rewrite the way courts assess fines for unlawful strikes, ordering the CFMMEU's MUA division to pay $38,000 for a solitary contravention after the watchdog sought $3.6 million in penalties for more than 500 breaches.
In a significant ruling that might reduce penalties regulators can win for Fair Work Act breaches, the Federal Court has found that the legislation's double jeopardy provision prevents the imposition of separate fines for related contraventions arising from the same conduct.
A prison officer effectively sacked twice after pleading guilty to assaulting three inmates has again won his job back, an appeal court finding that the IR commissioner who originally reinstated him had correctly focused on what is fair and just, rather than "the reputation of the government".
An FWC full bench has quashed a decision not to approve a deal struck between Thiess and three pre-contract employees on the basis it was not genuinely agreed, remitting the Mount Pleasant mine agreement to a single member for redetermination.
Two big international direct marketing companies exercised control over workers who were engaged as independent contractors to sell products or solicit donations to major corporations and charities, according to documents lodged with the Federal Court.
The MUA delegate whose loss of casual stevedoring shifts sparked last year's Webb Dock blockade was earlier mistakenly provided with a letter by the container terminal operator's HR-IR director declaring him a full-timer, the Federal Court has been told.
The FWO is seeking to fine the CFMMEU's MUA division more than $3.5 million for unlawful industrial action against Hutchison Ports, using a novel argument that historic contraventions of the same Fair Work Act provision denies the union the benefit of the legislation's single course of conduct mechanism.
