The Federal public sector gender pay gap has more than halved in a year, falling from 13.5% to 6.4%, but employers could still improve on men's uptake of paid parental leave, according to a new WGEA report that includes individual agencies' remuneration disparities for the first time.
The Electrical Trades Union is urging the Albanese Government to close gaps in privacy laws to stop resource employers routinely breaching workers' privacy with mandatory blood sampling before they are engaged, warning that the model is being promoted "as a standard step in the recruitment process in all industries in Australia".
The Federal Court has imposed a record penalty on a sushi restaurant chain to "disabuse" employers of the notion that penalties for underpayments are "an acceptable cost of doing business" and recommended that the Fair Work Ombudsman refer its chief executive's potential flouting of tax and migration laws to the ATO, Department of Home Affairs and ASIC.
The FWC has extended time for a worker's unfair dismissal claim by 24 days because his employer, which "flouted its legal employment obligations and ignored the FWO", withheld his payslips and employment contract, preventing him from identifying the entity that employed him.
In a landmark ruling today on franchisors' IR compliance obligations, the Federal Court has imposed a $1.44 million fine on a coffee chain for its franchisees' underpayments and record-keeping breaches.
The HR manager of a dumpling chain fined $4 million over a "deceitful and unscrupulous" payroll scam has been hit with a $100,000 penalty for her role, after the Federal Court heard a big sanction might force her to sell her share of her home.
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.
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.
Large corporates and universities accounted for almost two-thirds of the $509 million in unpaid wages and entitlements recovered by the FWO in 2022-23 on behalf of more than 250,000 workers, the workplace watchdog revealed today.
Underpaying employers could face fines of more than $4 million or three times the sum involved, while individuals such as directors and HR managers could face imprisonment and penalties up to $825,000 per breach under further wage theft reforms being considered by the Albanese Government.
