Labor maintains that its legislation to protect penalty and overtime rates, to be introduced to Parliament tomorrow, will block changes to awards that might make a single worker worse off.
With more than a third of young workers paid $15 an hour or less and almost half working unpaid overtime, loaded rates could provide a partial solution, according to new university research on the exploitation of young workers.
The Fair Work Ombudsman is taking a labour hire company to court for unlawfully deducting $500 fines from migrant workers' pay when they breached its drug and alcohol policy.
In a landmark ruling today on franchisors' IR compliance obligations, the Federal Court has imposed a $1.44 million fine on a coffee chain for its franchisees' underpayments and record-keeping breaches.
NSW unions are looking for solutions as "extremely shocking" preliminary results of an unpaid overtime survey suggest it is rife, with whole industries apparently dependent on it.
The FWC has expressed dismay at a large aged care employer's "shift bidding" system in which it offers part-time workers extra hours only at ordinary pay, recommending instead that each employee get a chance to cap how many such shifts they are prepared to work without receiving overtime rates.
A court has hit a former Indian High Commissioner with maximum fines for entrapping a worker in "powerless domestic servitude" in the guise of a diplomatic posting, paying her $9 daily to keep his palatial Canberra home 17.5 hours a day, seven days a week.
Justin Hemmes' Merivale has agreed to a $18 million settlement of an underpayments class action that Adero Law once valued at up to $150 million, with more than $8.6 million to go towards fees and commissions and the rest potentially split between about 14,000 group members.
An accountancy firm and its principal must pay penalties totalling almost $70,000 for failing to comply with FWO notices to produce documents linked to to its client's "grossly inadequate" employee record-keeping.