The CFMMEU's mining and energy division is taking credit for BHP's revelation today that it will have to backpay almost 30,000 workers in its Australian operations it has shortchanged since 2010, with its share set to cost it $431 million.
Underpaying employers could face fines of more than $4 million or three times the sum involved, while individuals such as directors and HR managers could face imprisonment and penalties up to $825,000 per breach under further wage theft reforms being considered by the Albanese Government.
A dumpling chain's HR manager was knowingly concerned in its Fair Work Act contraventions and "did not simply act as a conduit", the Federal Court has held in a liability judgment, finding she also instructed and trained a colleague in a payroll scam using both accurate and inaccurate records.
The FSU has launched a Federal Court test case against NAB over alleged unreasonable additional working hours in what the union warns is "just the start" for the industry.
A judge irked by a multinational company's attempt to cast its underpaying subsidiary's award breaches as the court's "alternate interpretation" has imposed a near-maximum fine.
A judge has criticised the FWO for seeking "excessive" penalties against two restaurant businesses and reduced the penalties from the $250,000 the FWO sought to just $32,000 after it emerged that their director is broke and had been contemplating suicide.
A court has fined the director of a Japanese restaurant almost $25,000 after finding that he "reverse engineered" pay records provided to the FWO and asked a shortchanged employee not to "sell me out".
A former economics professor's troubled relationship with workplace laws has continued, after a court accepted that he "actively" managed an underpaying grocery store previously fined for similar breaches.
In a rare Federal Court ruling on reasonable additional hours, a large employer faces penalties for numerous Fair Work Act and award breaches after being found to have employed a recently-arrived "third-world" migrant on a 50-hour week in which shifts began at 2am.
The Federal Court has set a seven-week trial to hear Adero Law's class actions against Coles and Woolworths in tandem with FWO underpayment claims against the retailers, while the law firm seeks about a third of a $2.2 million settlement with Drakes and Foodland.