Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke intends to amend the Closing Loopholes No 2 legislation so that "employee-like" workers in the gig economy and in road transport cannot "double-dip" in the federal and state IR systems.
A palliative care doctor given 10 minutes' notice that his three-year fixed-term contract was to be succeeded by a six-month contract immediately lost his right to have a tribunal review the new offer, Tasmania's Supreme Court has held.
The latest tranche of Macquarie Bank wealth advisors to sue for alleged underpayments continue to maintain they were paid under commission-only arrangements despite the bank's insistence this was paid on top of a base salary.
A former CSIRO marine biologist is seeking more than $250,000 in alleged underpayments as part of a sham contracting and "unjust enrichment" case challenging its part-time work arrangements and use of unpaid visiting scientists.
A court has held that BlueScope Steel repudiated the contracts of managerial employees by taking them off annualised salary arrangements under a 2015 Port Kembla steelworks rescue plan said to have cut their pay by more than $20,000.
A Sydney-based Canadian paid a regular monthly untaxed figure in US dollars by a Calgary-headquartered company for which he agreed to act as an independent contractor has had his unfair dismissal claim upheld, with the FWC finding he was not genuinely retrenched.
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.
The FWO has dropped its case against Foodora over alleged sham contracts, bringing to a premature close what was anticipated to be a significant test of the gig economy's employment relationships in Australia.
The voluntary administrators of food delivery business Foodora Australia Pty Ltd say the process will give the company "essential breathing space", which includes a statutory stay on landmark legal proceedings testing whether its riders are employees or contractors.
The ripples from a recent decision upsetting the authority on outer limits contract workers pursuing unfair dismissal claims have reached another jurisdiction, with the WA IR Commission ordering the reinstatement of a septuagenarian school traffic warden who had been "taken advantage" of by the employer.
