A four-member Fair Work Commission full bench has ruled that the tribunal has the power to insert in modern awards a provision penalising employers for late payment of wages, but has left it to another bench to decide next week whether the proposal has merit.
In a lucrative Christmas/New Year period for the Commonwealth's coffers, the Federal Circuit Court has handed down penalties amounting to more than $580,000 in eight separate cases brought by the Fair Work Ombudsman against companies and their directors for breaches of the Fair Work Act.
A Federal Court full bench has upheld a finding that the main retail award applies to delivery drivers employed by the online arm of supermarket giant Coles.
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 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.
The Federal Circuit Court has awarded a long-distance bus driver $13,000 after rejecting his employer's argument that he was employed to work shifts rather than calendar days and therefore not entitled to a living away from home allowance.
The Federal Court has relied on a 25-year "common understanding" in the transport industry in preference to the literal wording of an award in rejecting a TWU claim for Linfox day workers to be paid crib time.
In what four judges agree is an "extraordinary case" involving a "spectacularly bad witness" and a "serial fraudster", a Swan Hill shop assistant will keep almost half a million dollars in back pay and interest after a full Federal Court confirmed that she had not agreed to work for nothing.
In another chapter of a long-running case involving a botched attempt to lodge AWAs, a former company director will have the penalty for her role in short-changing 33 call centre workers reduced after the Federal Court cut in half the period in which she was liable as an accessory to her company's breaches.
In a big win for supermarket giant Coles, the Federal Circuit Court has ruled that its online delivery drivers are covered by the major retail award, throwing out the TWU's long-running claim that they are employed in the transport industry.
