Coles and Woolworths estimate they will need to remediate underpaid workers up to $780 million, following a complex judgment in two class actions and regulatory proceedings handed down last week.
A judge has criticised the “unacceptably complex” trial of two regulatory cases and two underpayments class actions against Coles and Woolworths, delivering a ruling whose significance for the workers is not yet clear.
The Fair Work Ombudsman will seek default judgment against former CFMEU secretary John Setka, who has failed to engage with the regulator’s case alleging he attempted to get the former head of the construction industry regulator fired.
After a judge raised concerns underpayments claims against jewellery chain Lovisa were not suitable for a group proceeding, counsel for a class action has suggested running the applicants’ case “as if” it isn’t a class action.
A judge hearing a suit against Lovisa has questioned whether it should proceed as a class action, but shut down a ‘pejorative remark’ by the jewellery chain’s barrister about Fair Work class actions.
Bakers Delight has filed a challenge to a finding that it was subject to a statutory reverse onus aimed at employers, in a Fair Work Ombudsman underpayments case against a franchisee.
The University of Melbourne has been ordered to reinstate an academic who was sacked for allegedly harassing a female colleague.
A judge has expressed concern that a “bizarre” last-minute settlement in a long-running case against the CFMEU could damage the public perception of the FWO as a model litigant, saying it could appear that the ombudsman treated some perpetrators as “more equal” than others.
On the first day of trial in parallel class actions and regulatory proceedings, the Fair Work Ombudsman panned the payment systems adopted by Woolworths and Coles for salaried managers, saying they were “entirely foreign” to the industrial award and that the supermarket giants had “no meaningful proper records” for overtime.
Despite objections from numerous group members, a judge has tossed an underpayments class action brought by a self-represented applicant against Wilson Security, ruling that class actions should not be run without lawyers.