After providing $150,000 to settle an underpayments claim brought by five fruit pickers last year, labour hire company Agri Labour Australia is facing a new claim from 26 seasonal workers alleging they were short-paid more than $200,000.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has launched the first legal action using new reverse onus of proof provisions that require employers to disprove underpayment claims if they have not kept adequate records.
The Federal Circuit Court has fined a former 7-Eleven operator more than $154,000 for using a cash-back scheme to circumvent a biometric payroll system introduced by head office to stamp out underpayments.
The FWC has praised the "extraordinary lengths" an employer took to support a worker suffering from domestic violence before it sacked her for failing to improve her attendance.
Westpac was entitled to dismiss a premium client manager for putting customer service ahead of protecting their personal information when he loaned his allegedly troublesome work phone to a visiting relative and used his private Gmail account as a workaround for the bank's "slow" internal email system, the FWC has found.
A Serco detainee officer has failed to overturn a finding that he was fairly dismissed for his flawed oversight of a high-risk deportation, allowing his team to remove refreshments from a Qantas lounge and letting the detainee make a withdrawal from an ATM.
The union advising Shine Lawyers on a $1 billion bid to recoup wages and entitlements for 4000 telecommunications workers allegedly misclassified as sub-contractors says the class action could finally answer a question historically avoided via settlement.
The FWC's landmark ruling that a former Foodora rider was an employee is unlikely to have implications for other major gig economy platforms like Uber and Deliveroo, according to leading IR law academic Andrew Stewart.
As Foodora's administrators concede the company underpaid workers more than $5 million after misclassifying thousands of casuals as independent contractors, an IR academic says an ATO report could establish whether the findings have far-reaching implications for other gig economy employers.
The construction watchdog is investigating whether Master Builders Tasmania charged induction fees for more than 120 Chinese plasterers in order to work on a major project in Hobart.