A judge has held that an "instant" online script did not excuse an underpaying employer from having to attend a penalty hearing, while also warning that in future the court is unlikely to accept certificates from providers using the model adopted by the Wesfarmers-owned service.
A court has issued rare orders compelling a former economics professor to face FWO questions under oath about his capacity to pay penalties and compensation arising from underpayment judgments handed down in 2019 and 2020.
A director's argument that he is well qualified to represent his company in an underpayments case has fallen flat, a court citing a "lack of objectivity" as being among the reasons to reject the proposition.
A FWC full bench has refused to extend a farm's 16-year-old deal for 12 weeks beyond next month's sunsetting of zombie agreements, describing the application as an effort to pay below-award rates for "one more" onion-picking season.
A judge has declined to bundle together an employer's various workplace breaches in ordering it to pay $163,000 in fines to a former worker for stripping his severance pay of more than 500 accumulated annual leave hours.
In a significant ruling on agreement coverage, a full Federal Court has found that two Catholic school teachers are entitled to pay rises contained in new deals despite resigning before they took effect.
A judge who rejected a SDA bid to prioritise its breaks case against McDonald's by staying an earlier RAFFWU-backed class action has contrasted the "lacklustre and misdirected approach" of the country's second-largest union with that of the unregistered, seven-year-old union and its lawyers.
A Channel 10 executive producer has failed to convince the Federal Court that the broadcaster should have paid her an extra $400,000 under its significantly more generous enterprise agreement redundancy pay provisions, rather than the NES entitlement she received.
A FWC full bench has confirmed that it can only approve enterprise agreements that include rates of pay, because their absence prevents it determining whether the deal passes the BOOT.
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.