A café owner penalised for ignoring a FWO compliance notice has been referred to a legal profession regulator after variously describing herself as a "Commonwealth public prosecutions Lawyer" and "Gov lawyer" in emails to a court.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth will next week hold the first meeting of a new tripartite advisory group, as her organisation prepares for the new criminal penalties regime and "safe harbour" mechanisms for employers who transgress but are willing to lift their games.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth says that a KPMG review of the watchdog is supportive of "collaborations" with the Fair Work Commission and other "workplace participants".
An accountancy firm and its principal must pay penalties totalling almost $70,000 for failing to comply with FWO notices to produce documents linked to to its client's "grossly inadequate" employee record-keeping.
New Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth is hoping to harness the power of unions and employer groups to boost workplace compliance and has indicated that she intends to put her experience with the FWC's Collaborative Approaches program to good use.
In a significant decision on directors' liability for underpayments, a court has found that although the co-founder of Chatime was unaware the bubble-tea chain was in breach of workplace laws, he understood enough about award obligations around casual and weekend penalty rates to be considered complicit.
Large corporates and universities accounted for almost two-thirds of the $509 million in unpaid wages and entitlements recovered by the FWO in 2022-23 on behalf of more than 250,000 workers, the workplace watchdog revealed today.
The FWO is prosecuting franchisor Bakers Delight for failing to prevent its franchisees from underpaying workers, after the head office discovered the wage theft and failed to address it.
