A Federal Court full bench has overturned a lower court's interpretation of an employment contract, finding that it had wrongly taken account of the parties' conduct after it commenced.
A court has found that a worker who was asked to look for alternative employment due to his heart condition was dismissed, rejecting his employer's argument that his job ended by "mutual agreement".
The Federal Court has refused to delay the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate's unlawful coercion case against the CFMEU over the 2012 Grocon blockade, finding that the company's contempt charges against the union in the Victorian Supreme Court are not criminal proceedings.
The Productivity Commission in a new report has repeated its call for governments to adopt Victorian-style procurement guidelines to regulate substandard IR conduct in the construction industry, but has warned they might need to be modified to avoid a clash with the Fair Work Act.
The Federal Circuit Court has imposed $313,500 in penalties on a company in the Roy Morgan Group for sham contracting, ruling the contraventions were deliberate and directed by senior management.
Giving teenage employees free and discounted pizzas and soft drink instead of wages – a practice belonging "in the dark ages rather than twenty first century Australia" – has cost a pizza franchise operator $335,000 in fines.
The Federal Court has endorsed an agreement for the MUA and two of its Sydney Branch officials to pay $41,000 in penalties to stevedores DP World for unlawful industrial action the union took in response to the company's plans to dismiss an employee who had been on long term leave.
Victoria's Office of Public Prosecutions has been ordered pay a $10,000 fine and to reinstate a solicitor it subjected to unlawful adverse action when it stood him down then dismissed him for misconduct that "arose wholly" from his anxiety and depression.
The construction watchdog says it pursuing action against 25 building workers who owe penalties of $135,625 dating from unlawful industrial action on the North-West shelf gas project in 2008.
A finance broking house that issued a Brisbane-based employee five payslips in six years and employed him on a commission-based agreement that it believed did not entitle him to base salary, sick pay, annual leave and superannuation entitlements has been ordered to pay him almost $124,000 in penalties.
