On 9 June 2016, the FWO confirmed the securing of an Enforceable Undertaking with a Victorian based mining employer. The Undertaking sets out that since August 2015, the mining services company has been the subject of 11 requests for assistance to the FWO “relating to allegations of underpayment of wages, penalty rates and shift allowances”. […]
The Federal Court of Australia has recently handed down awarding over $330,000 to an employee who was able to establish that her new employer had misrepresented her potential earnings during the recruitment process. The employee in this case was a veteran of the insurance building industry. Up until about April 2013, she was employed by […]
Another employer has failed to satisfy the Fair Work Commission on the issue of serious misconduct. In this case , the Applicant was an internationally renowned rifleman and IT Manager. In July 2015, a friend of the Applicant attended the carpark of the Applicant’s workplace with the intention of discussing a rifle part with him. Critically, […]
The Federal Circuit Court has awarded an employee $415,698 in damages, as well as imposing $50,000 worth of civil penalties on an employer following a finding that the employer changed the status of the employee from full-time to part-time as a result of the employee making a workers’ compensation claim. The Court accepted that for […]
The Fair Work Ombudsman has made a number of statements over the last 6 months relating to the prosecution of 7-Eleven franchisees. October 2015 Statement In a statement made in October 2015, the Fair Work Ombudsman noted that in the past 6 years, the FWO had recovered more than $600,000 in unpaid entitlements on behalf […]
The District Court of Queensland has granted an injunction to an employer restraining a financial adviser from soliciting or providing professional services to any clients of his former employer for a period of up to 6 months. The employee managed 60 portfolios for the employer before his departure. In the time between the employee’s departure […]
An employer who terminated an employee for poor performance has lost an unfair dismissal case before the Fair Work Commission and was criticised for its tolerance of the employee’s poor performance. The employee was terminated for poor performance reasons. The employer relied on the employee’s failure to follow water quality monitoring and reporting procedures over […]
The Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commission has recently handed down a decision that has a number of lessons for employers. In this case, some of the conduct undertaken by the respondent employee was found to be sexual harassment of the complainant; some of the conduct was found to have no connection with the complainant’s employment; and […]
The Fair Work Commission has found that an employee who approached a competitor of his employer and divulged personal information about his current boss and the business was not unfairly dismissed. In the case, the employer and the employee had already agreed in August 2015 that the employee’s employment would cease on 31 December 2015. […]
Decisions about swearing in the workplace are often some of the more unpredictable decisions in the Fair Work jurisdiction. In this case, the employer succeeded in defending its decision to dismiss an employee by demonstrating that the employee had previously been warned swearing in the workplace prior to his dismissal. The Fair Work Commission heard […]