Unions NSW has called for a code of practice on unpaid work while an advocacy body wants Australia to import the US test on whether unpaid internships are legal, in response to the NSW Government's moves to promote volunteering.
The FWO has launched a review into the hiring of overseas employees on 417 working holiday visas, including allegations that "unscrupulous operators" are exploiting the visa requirements to attract free labour.
Requiring employees to sit in a "slow moving car park queue" and travel up to two hours a day to and from a new work location does not count as reasonable alternative employment, the Fair Work Commission has ruled in a decision to award six workers redundancy pay.
In an unusual postscript to a notorious sham contracting case, an abattoir operator has relied on a Federal Court ruling that it had vigorously opposed to successfully argue that it was the employer of an injured worker, thus avoiding having to pay him more than $150,000 in common law damages.
The Department of Employment has referred to the corporate watchdog allegations that a textile company entered into “contrived arrangements” to avoid paying redundancy entitlements to 60 workers.
Higher superannuation contributions and federal minimum wage rates are - along with new federal senators taking their seats - among the changes due to take effect from Tuesday, July 1.
The Federal Circuit Court has imposed $313,500 in penalties on a company in the Roy Morgan Group for sham contracting, ruling the contraventions were deliberate and directed by senior management.
In what four judges agree is an "extraordinary case" involving a "spectacularly bad witness" and a "serial fraudster", a Swan Hill shop assistant will keep almost half a million dollars in back pay and interest after a full Federal Court confirmed that she had not agreed to work for nothing.
Giving teenage employees free and discounted pizzas and soft drink instead of wages – a practice belonging "in the dark ages rather than twenty first century Australia" – has cost a pizza franchise operator $335,000 in fines.
The Fair Work Commission will allow Patrick Stevedores to proceed with job cuts at the Port of Melbourne, after rejecting an MUA bid for an interim restraining order because the balance of convenience lay with the employer.
