A multinational company has been ordered to pay $160,000 to a former executive sacked over concerns about his capacity to return to work, despite its HR manager's insistence it was "insulting" to suggest the employee's depression played any part in the decision.
The ailing 86-year-old director of a newspaper publishing company has been ordered to pay $27,500 to a journalist he sacked seven years ago, a day after he refused to withdraw a complaint to the Fair Work Ombudsman over underpayments.
A judge denied the TWU procedural fairness when failing to provide an opportunity to argue against his unsignalled departure from an agreed position between the union and the ROC before imposing a $270,000 penalty for serious record-keeping breaches, a Full Federal Court has found.
A former GM Holden engineer is suing the company for adverse action, sham contracting and coercion, alleging it reduced her redundancy payout by more than $20,000 when she refused to sign a separation agreement without continuity of service covering her time as a contractor.
In a significant decision as to what constitutes industrial action, a full Federal Court has found that the legislative framework does not capture instances where a subcontractor's workers down tools with the support of their direct employer.
The RTBU is targeting a labour hire company's training school and its top executives with a backpayment claim for unremunerated "on-the-job" learning, potentially covering hundreds of past and present participants that the union characterises as "employees".
A Federal Circuit Court stoush over whether a company lawfully docked the pay of workers for attending a union meeting about on-site asbestos could hinge on whether they faced an "imminent threat" and whether the supervisor who granted permission was authorised.
The Fair Work Ombudsman won more than $7.2 million in court-ordered penalties in the latest financial year, a 49% increase from the previous year reflecting more serious cases and courts' "growing intolerance for exploitative conduct against vulnerable workers".
The Morrison Government has introduced legislation to crack down on "sharp corporate practices" such as phoenix companies and asset-shifting by employers that are seeking to avoid paying employee entitlements.
In a significant decision on adverse publicity as a factor in setting penalties, a judge has heavily discounted fines sought against an underpaying Melbourne restaurant chain while criticising the FWO's practice of naming and shaming employers before their day in court.
