The owners of a Coffee Club café franchise have been fined more than $180,000 for taking advantage of a desperate 457 skilled visa worker who they first refused to pay and then forced to hand back $18,000 under threat of ending his sponsorship.
A Senate inquiry's largely bipartisan support for the Turnbull Government's Protecting Vulnerable Workers Bill is a "striking indication" of how far the debate on the issue has advanced, according to Adelaide University Professor of Law, Andrew Stewart.
An accountancy firm that knowingly failed to maintain current award rates of pay in its MYOB payroll system has been found accessorially liable for an employer's underpayments.
Queensland's Palaszczuk Labor Government will introduce legislation this month to mandate the licensing of labour hire companies from next year, setting the pace for other Labor states such as Victoria and South Australia.
After what the FWO says is the first judicial review of one of its compliance notices, the Federal Circuit Court has found that a cook engaged at a Hindu temple was underpaid because he was wrongly classified as a priest under his employment contract.
WA's incoming McGowan Labor Government will move quickly to reduce the number of visa workers in the State, to match the "changed economic circumstances" after the end of the mining boom.
As a court fines a regional café more than $500,000 for exploiting overseas workers and the FWO pursues two other cafes for unlawful "cash-back" schemes, Ombudsman Natalie James has welcomed the Federal Government's commitment to introducing laws to prohibit such arrangements.
