After providing $150,000 to settle an underpayments claim brought by five fruit pickers last year, labour hire company Agri Labour Australia is facing a new claim from 26 seasonal workers alleging they were short-paid more than $200,000.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has launched the first legal action using new reverse onus of proof provisions that require employers to disprove underpayment claims if they have not kept adequate records.
The Federal Circuit Court has fined a former 7-Eleven operator more than $154,000 for using a cash-back scheme to circumvent a biometric payroll system introduced by head office to stamp out underpayments.
The Federal Court will next month convene a hearing for an ACCC prosecution of employment advice provider Employsure for allegedly misleading small business operators into believing it was the FWO or the FWC or was connected to them.
Victoria's Supreme Court has lobbed a $125,000 contempt fine against the CFMMEU for pre-amalgamation MUA leaders' speeches to picketers at a Melbourne container terminal, finding the union made a calculated decision that its interests would be well served by flouting "no go" orders.
A small coach company that voluntarily repaid two drivers almost $44,000 after admitting underpaying them has been penalised a total of $168,300, despite a judge finding the breaches were a result of "clumsiness and inadvertence" rather than deliberate.
CFMMEU official Joe Myles has been hit with his second personal payment order in four months, the Federal Court today fining him $44,000 for a series of threats and actions over an unfavoured subcontractor working on a level crossing site in 2013 and 2014.
Maurice Blackburn has massively expanded the size and reach of its Victoria-generated class action against Uber, reaching out around the country and targeting the period when the ride share company started to operate in 2014, before state-based transport laws were changed.
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.
