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 workplace watchdog's power to hold franchisors to account for franchisees' underpayments has been bolstered, after a full Federal Court today threw out a challenge by the Bakers Delight chain.
Senior ABC managers failed to consult in-house IR and legal experts and "blithely ignored" risks when the organisation "capitulated" to critics and sacked presenter Antoinette Lattouf over her political views on the Gaza war, which warranted a substantial penalty to deter a recurrence, Federal Court judge Darryl Rangiah found today.
The Federal Court has today ordered the ABC to pay former presenter Antoinette Lattouf a fine of $150,000 for unlawfully sacking her for reasons including her political opinion opposing the Gaza war and breaching its enterprise agreement.
A labour law academic says there is a need to ask how Australia's IR system is so "fundamentally broken" that it incentivises the conduct evident in Qantas's decision to unlawfully outsource jobs to avoid bargaining, in circumstances where the record $90 million fine imposed yesterday will barely dent its resultant annual savings.
The Federal Court has today ordered Qantas to pay a $90 million fine - including $50 million to the TWU - for the Flying Kangaroo's unlawful outsourcing of the jobs of about 1800 ground handling employees, while it has criticised chief executive Vanessa Hudson for failing to appear to explain the airline's contrition.
A judge has slapped an $8000 penalty on a major Commonwealth department after expressing astonishment that it does not have a "human or technological" system in place to ensure it pays dismissed employees their correct entitlements.
The Australian subsidiary of a multinational construction company followed a "considered industrial strategy" devised by a former AMWU leader when it refused a senior union official entry to a project to speak to workers, a judge has found.