The FWC has warned a radiology provider whose HR manager took an "ill-informed" position that it risks a civil penalty and underpayment claims if it requires part-timers to put in extra hours without overtime pay or agreement and fails to put working patterns in writing.
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.
The FWC has moved to correct two perceived wrinkles in the award covering salaried IT professionals, engineers, scientists and gaming sector employees that have led to some being paid as little as $22 per hour and "excessive litigation" over its disputed coverage of unfair dismissal applicants.
In what it claims is its first litigation seeking to have a holding company found responsible for its subsidiaries' breaches, the FWO has initiated court action against ASX-listed Super Retail Group for self-reported underpayments of more than $1 million that led to an internal audit and backpayments exceeding $50 million that the watchdog says remain short of the mark.
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 HR manager facing potential criminal charges has before a FWC bench refused to answer nearly 100 questions seeking to establish whether he lied on the application form for a contentious agreement that provides for employees to work "voluntary" additional hours without penalty rates.
In a significant decision on the nature of work, the FWC has found that the nursing home at the centre of one of Queensland's deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks should have paid employees for the time spent taking rapid antigen tests before the start of their shifts.
A FWC full bench has taken a union and employer to task for failing to notify it to resume hearing the former's challenge to a contentious hospitality deal under which employees can work "voluntary" additional hours without penalties.
The FWC has rejected a glass manufacturer's claims that it accidentally halved rest breaks in a proposed deal, dismissing the employer's approval application because it failed to adequately explain it and other deficient clauses to the workers who voted for it.