Workers have no right to disconnect from FWC proceedings and the Commission can order them to attend or give evidence outside of work hours, a presidential member has confirmed.
The FWO has further tightened the screws on franchisors after the Federal Court agreed that it fell to Bakers Delight to disprove that it is liable for half of a liquidated franchisee's alleged underpayments of more than $1.2 million.
The FWC has refused to approve a Subway franchisee's proposed deal designed to replace a zombie agreement, finding it not genuinely agreed because the employer failed to adequately explain which allowances would be absorbed into the rate of pay, and that penalty and minimum rates would freeze for the life of the agreement.
The FWC has declined to interfere with the ATO's decision to refuse a worker absent more than 248 days in a year access to unpaid personal leave, observing that its enterprise agreement did not provide an "unfettered" right to such time off.
Lawyers involved in "wage theft" class actions on behalf of thousands of junior doctors says Victorian public health services might face tens of millions of dollars in fines after a court found one of them "expressly and brazenly" instructed trainees to perform unpaid overtime.
The TWU has filed the last of its promised applications aimed at overhauling standards in the road transport industry, asking the FWC to make a contractual chain order imposing 30-day payment deadlines and compulsory rate reviews, while prohibiting unfair "set-off" terms.
Mining giant Peabody has won special leave from the High Court to challenge a full Federal Court finding that it did not genuinely make workers redundant when it failed to consider whether it could redeploy workers to jobs performed by contractors.
FWC president Adam Hatcher will convene a directions hearing next month into the Commission's own-initiative case to develop a "workable" award clause that removes impediments to working from home.
