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 restaurant unfairly dismissed a 457-visaholder cook who had an imposter sit his English competency test and secretly recorded conversations after reporting it for alleged exploitation, the FWC has held.
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A federal court judge has in fining an underpaying juice shop operator almost $35,000 flatly rejected "cultur[al] differences" as a mitigating factor, lamenting instead the frequency with which ethnically diverse employers exploit their own communities.
In a significant decision on FWO investigative powers under recent laws stiffening protections for vulnerable workers, the Federal Court has rejected a franchisor's bid to have declared void a notice to produce documents created before the legislation came into force.
Three payroll officers who "reverse-engineered" false records during an FWO investigation have been fined a total of $121,000 as part of the largest penalty order won by the workplace watchdog.
The Victorian Government has pushed ahead with legislation to create a criminal offence for deliberate underpayment, defying employer calls for it to be scrapped or delayed.
The Victorian Government intends to "pierce the corporate veil" with its forthcoming legislation to introduce criminal penalties for the worst cases of underpayment and exploitation.
The CEPU has been fined $445,000 for historic reporting breaches, a Federal Court judge observing that the penalty would have been higher had the union not moved to clean up its act by employing a compliance officer.