The underpayment of migrant workers significantly worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a large Unions NSW audit revealing 88% of a sample of foreign language job ads in the state offered below award wages.
The ACCC has issued a warning notice against an IR business and its sole director accused of pocketing compensation payments made to unfair dismissal applicants.
A Victorian County Court judge has held that former HSU official Kathy Jackson "selfishly" misused about $103,000 in union funds, but has handed down a wholly-suspended two-year jail sentence.
The Federal Court has penalised the CFMMEU and three construction division WA branch officials $180,000 for organising a half-day strike in 2018 over redundancy pay for Perth Airport rail link workers, 39 of whom also copped $4000 fines.
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.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has made scant use of new powers it won three years ago to conduct compulsory interviews and to prosecute franchisors to help to protect vulnerable workers.
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.
An accountancy firm that created and gave the FWO false records covering up a massage parlour's underpayments must pay more per breach than the family-run employer, which has been fined about 10% of the penalties sought by the workplace watchdog.
