The Fair Work Ombudsman has asked for a Senate inquiry to "exercise its discretion" in keeping confidential a list of self-reported major corporate underpayments.
Despite suspending field-based work due to COVID-19, the FWO's annual report reveals it has more than tripled the amount recovered for workers and significantly increased its compliance activities after revising its strategy.
The Morrison Government will modestly increase funding to the Fair Work Commission over the next two years as part of its response to COVID-19, which is expected to drive up employer insolvencies and increase demand for the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme.
Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker says the number of large corporations under investigation for underpayment has risen to 70, forcing the agency to redeploy staff while also having to deal with a spike in inquiries due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Extraordinary expenditure of no credit to anybody": Judge; Worker backpaid $224K as public corporation admits underpayments; ALLA webinar on pandemic's IR impact.
A federal court judge has in fining an underpaying juice shop operator almost $35,000 flatly rejected "cultur[al] differences" as a mitigating factor, lamenting instead the frequency with which ethnically diverse employers exploit their own communities.
In a significant decision on FWO investigative powers under recent laws stiffening protections for vulnerable workers, the Federal Court has rejected a franchisor's bid to have declared void a notice to produce documents created before the legislation came into force.
The FWO's pursuit of penalties over a crew's "sit-in" on a decommissioned trading vessel has been potentially scuppered by a Federal Court finding that they were not covered by an agreement at the time.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has revealed it will spend more than $17 million on a panel of law firms charged with providing tailored workplace advice to employers affected by COVID-19.
In levelling a $22,440 penalty against the former owner-operator of a labour-hire company that underpaid 80 workers on a Queensland mushroom farm more than $78,000, a court has noted the FWO did not seek compensation.
