The FWO has won its first "serious contravention" penalties three years after the provisions were added to the Fair Work Act, a café and its former general manager fined a total of $230,000 on their second visit to court for underpaying workers.
A 61-year-old former economics professor has been fined $31,000 for underpaying two visa holders employed at a Korean grocery, a court finding he deliberately arranged for them to receive as little as $10 an hour.
An accountancy firm that created and gave the FWO false records covering up a massage parlour's underpayments must pay more per breach than the family-run employer, which has been fined about 10% of the penalties sought by the workplace watchdog.
A marijuana-smoking supervisor who allegedly resigned after declining a drug test has had his unfair dismissal claim thrown out because a "project uplift" allowance of at least 25% counted as earnings that pushed him beyond the high-income threshold.
Qantas is considering a challenge to a Federal Court interpretation today of JobKeeper payment rules that will require it to backpay employees who received penalty rates in arrears while covered by the wage subsidy scheme.
The Federal Circuit Court has expressed "hesitation and regret" in accepting that while a DJ was a casual rather than an independent contractor, his underpayments claim must fail as his work was not covered by an award.
The latest tranche of Macquarie Bank wealth advisors to sue for alleged underpayments continue to maintain they were paid under commission-only arrangements despite the bank's insistence this was paid on top of a base salary.
A senior FWC member has taken aim at a union for exhuming a member's five-year-old allowance grievance, observing that it risked its reputation by unenthusiastically pursuing such a "stale" and "obviously flawed" case.
The Victorian government has pledged to honour promised pay rises totalling 9% over four years to nurses and midwives working in the State's public health system, along with a "one-stop shop" for long service leave.
An employer that cut a manager's wages by 15% due to COVID-19, but then restored her old rate when it made her redundant, has failed to establish that her pay exceeded the high-income threshold because to do otherwise would allow "manipulation" to deny her the chance to challenge her dismissal.
