Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth will next week hold the first meeting of a new tripartite advisory group, as her organisation prepares for the new criminal penalties regime and "safe harbour" mechanisms for employers who transgress but are willing to lift their games.
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.
A worker who is accusing his employer of sacking him after he complained about his co-workers' alleged discriminatory behaviour - included calling him a "skippy poofter" and grabbing his genitalia - has failed to cap his potential maximum court costs at $30,000.
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.
A major fruit and vegetable grower defending one of the biggest workplace s-xual harassment and assault cases in Australia says it took "immediate steps" to remove the accused workers and it no longer employs them.
The Federal Court has flayed the Republic of Italy for failing to heed Australian IR laws in its local consulates and has ordered it to pay a $94,000 fine, $7500 compensation and indemnity costs to an administrative employee after it failed to pay him annual leave loading for six years, to keep records in English and to produce the records on demand.
The Federal Court has fined the AWU almost $300,000 for 27,143 breaches of registered organisations laws, including failing to keep accurate membership records for nine years until 2017.
A CFMEU official has escaped having to personally pay a $7000 fine despite a court accepting that he raised the issue of workers' pay when blocking a non-union contractor's concrete pour.
A judge has held that an "instant" online script did not excuse an underpaying employer from having to attend a penalty hearing, while also warning that in future the court is unlikely to accept certificates from providers using the model adopted by the Wesfarmers-owned service.
A court has issued rare orders compelling a former economics professor to face FWO questions under oath about his capacity to pay penalties and compensation arising from underpayment judgments handed down in 2019 and 2020.
