The ramifications of recent legislative changes requiring employers to disprove employees' records of hours worked in wage claim cases have been spelt out in a court decision imposing penalties of more than $120,000 on a company and its director for underpaying an apprentice.
The husband and wife team behind a cleaning business have been hit with a record $510,840 penalty for underpaying three Taiwanese working holiday visa holders $11,500, a Federal Circuit Court judge dismissing concerns about their ability to pay despite an outstanding bill of $343,000 from a previous prosecution for identical contraventions.
In a ruling that underlines the Fair Work Ombudsman's pursuit of accessorial liability against advisors, a court has for the first time imposed a fine on an accountancy firm involved in an employer's underpayments.
In the FWO's first underpayment prosecution relying on race discrimination prohibitions in the Fair Work Act, a court has found a Tasmanian hotel and its manager deliberately short-changed a head chef and kitchen hand and expected them to work long hours, six days a week because of their Malaysian nationality and Chinese race.
A court has found a husband and wife who performed largely home-based clerical work exclusively for one business before their services were further outsourced were employees rather than contractors because the company had an "undoubted authority to control" the relationship.
A former Melbourne fruit market owner and his company have been hit with record penalties of more than $660,000 after "arrogantly" ignoring FWO warnings about underpaying a vulnerable Afghan refugee.
Fast food giant Pizza Hut has underpaid some of its delivery drivers, offering as little as $5.70 per delivery, with 92% of franchisees audited by the FWO failing to meet their legal obligations to employees, a report by the regulator has found.
The FWO has used accessorial liability provisions to secure substantial penalties across the chain of command of a frozen yoghurt franchise responsible for underpaying four overseas workers.