A full bench has quashed a finding that a meatworker is not entitled to payment for time involved in putting on and removing PPE during a half-hour unpaid meal break, but has held an employer's silence did not give the FWC power to arbitrate on the before- and after-work requirement.
Two franchisee directors of a Chatime bubble tea store have had most of their underpayment penalties suspended after a court accepted they acted on their franchisor's advice that they could pay age-based flat rates.
A judge who took exception to a business being liquidated during an underpayment case was entitled to impose heavier penalties on the owners than sought by the FWO, an appeal court has found.
The FWC has in the face of complaints about Australia's "complex" pay system unveiled a comprehensive online awards database stretching back more than five years that will be adjusted annually to incorporate minimum wage changes.
If the FWC incorporates loaded rates in hospitality and retail awards after a referral from IR Minister Christian Porter, it is likely to involve a range of such rates rather than a single one, the tribunal's president indicated in a statement today.
The AWU is seeking to delete a decade-old pieceworker provision in the horticulture award that it claims leaves affected workers with no safety net and substandard rates of pay.
Multinational cosmetics company Lush has backpaid workers almost $4.5 million and entered into an enforceable undertaking with the FWO after the lack of an HR department and training, along with a moribund manual payroll system, led to widespread underpayments.
A 61-year-old former economics professor has been fined $31,000 for underpaying two visa holders employed at a Korean grocery, a court finding he deliberately arranged for them to receive as little as $10 an hour.
