The Federal Court has fined a company almost $200,000 for underpaying its aged care workers more than $2.5m over a five year period, finding that its unlawful employment practices might have given it an unfair competitive advantage.
The Federal Court has ordered a barrister to pay an employer's costs in a failed adverse action appeal, finding that they were incurred as a result of her "poor judgment".
The Federal Circuit Court has found the sole director of a delicatessen/cafe accessorily liable in an underpayment case spanning more than 30 years and four periods of industrial law.
A long history of employee complaints and the need to send a strong message to the hair and beauty industry that "it does not pay to underpay workers" has led to a hairdressing chain being fined $70,000 for short-changing an apprentice more than $8,000.
Alcoa Australia has been ordered to bargain with the CFMEU for an enterprise agreement to cover 15 power supply operators at its regional Victorian plant after the Fair Work Commission granted the union a majority support determination.
A software engineer breached his employment contract, his equitable duty of confidence, the Copyright Act and the Corporations Act when he downloaded more than 380,000 of his employer's files onto a hard drive, just before he resigned, a court has found.
A FWC full bench has ruled that in assessing whether reinstatement is appropriate in an unfair dismissal case, the tribunal should not take into account any ill-will arising from continuing legal proceedings between an employee and an employer.
In an important ruling on the definition of industrial action, the Federal Court has held that the provision of sensitive information to the media by employees is not "protected" under the Fair Work Act and might leave them vulnerable to breach of contract and coercion claims.
Another High Court case on the Fair Work Act's protections for employees engaged in union activity might not be far away, according to a leading IR academic, after the CFMEU's appeal against the Federal Court's BHP Coal "scab-sign" ruling was this morning rejected by a 3-2 majority.
A High Court majority has dismissed the CFMEU's appeal against the Federal Court's decision that BHP Coal did not take adverse action when it dismissed a union delegate when he waved an "anti-scab" sign on a union picket.