In a significant judgment examining the interplay between employment relationships and employment contracts, the Federal Court has dismissed a major employer's appeal against a ruling it owed a cleaner redundancy pay after reducing her hours from full to part-time.
The FWC has held that TasWater unfairly sacked two workers accused of repeatedly using a workplace messaging system to engage in inappropriate sexual innuendo about female colleagues.
The ASU says it will object to extending a coronavirus-driven variation to the clerks' award because it has been "superseded" by JobKeeper and Fair Work Act changes, dismissing the employer bid as an attack on the award system.
An IR academic who has been documenting systematic underpayments in Australia has rounded on the Government's response, saying the counter-measures it has proposed to widespread wage theft are based on "discredited" theories of deterrence-based law enforcement.
In the FWO's first "contrition payment" extracted from another federal public body, the ABC has agreed to pay $600,000 and enter into an enforceable undertaking after admitting it underpaid 1900 past and current employees more than $12 million.
IR Minister Christian Porter has today set a target of February 1 next year for key IR changes the Government hopes the working groups will achieve, coinciding with minimum wage rises taking effect for the "group three" sectors most affected by the coronavirus crisis.
The FWC has found it reasonable to issue JobKeeper-enabling directions for some casuals to perform more than their pre-COVID-19 hours, after Prosegur required armoured vehicle operators to work a minimum of 25 hours a week.
A judge has imposed low-range penalties on an underpaying entrepreneur and his companies after observing that with his business in ruins, the fines' only effect would be "to make the rubble bounce".
In its first split decision in 23 years, the FWC's minimum wage panel has increased all modern award rates of pay by a modest 1.75%, in recognition of the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, and has set differential start dates between July this year and February next year.
