As it faces a bill of more than $170 million to restore underpayments to 66,000 current and former workers, NAB will make what the FWO says is the largest ever contrition payment of $2 million to Canberra's coffers as part of an enforceable undertaking that includes a novel obligation to re-write complex enterprise agreement clauses that contributed to the breaches.
A court has awarded more than $500,000 in penalties to an 80-year-old former pistol club manager paid for more than a decade just $250 a week, from which the employer deducted $100 as rent for the on-site mobile home she lived in with her disabled son.
A full Federal Court has confirmed that class actions cannot start until members are correctly identified but can "transmogrify", after Adero Law conceded the definition contained in a store managers' claim against The Reject Shop left the group "empty".
A small business and its owner have been hit with fines, compensation and damages totalling more than $300,000 after the "deplorable" exploitation of a young worker with an intellectual disability who went almost two years without being paid.
Woolworths has been hit with another underpayments class action, at the same time it is defending a shareholder class action accusing it of breaching disclosure rules by failing to keep the market informed about the extent to which it has shortchanged staff.
The implications of the Federal Court's retail underpayments decision are only starting to be understood, with employment law academic Andrew Stewart warning of the significent consequences of its redefinition of employer record-keeping obligations and findings on proving workers' agreement to vary award conditions.
The Federal Court has approved a $174 million Victorian Government payout to settle 30 class actions on behalf of junior doctors, of which ASMOF will be reimbursed $175,000, following a finding that a health service "expressly and brazenly" instructed trainees to perform unpaid overtime.
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.
