Adero Law

A judge has said that an underpayments class action’s challenge to hospitality giant Merivale’s argument that it does not owe back wages because it relied on an enterprise agreement it believed was valid should be heard before trial. 

A judge has panned as “thoroughly unsatisfactory” a draft notice informing group members in an underpayments class action against the federal government that only claims on behalf of postgraduate research students at the University of Sydney will continue.

The NSW government has been hit with a class action by Sydney Trains operations staff alleging a “systemic pattern” of underpayment and overwork.

Discount retail chain The Reject Shop has hit back at an underpayments class action, claiming store managers were not entitled to overtime and that their claims cannot be run as a class action.

Discount retail chain The Reject Shop has foreshadowed two challenges to an underpayments class action, claiming store managers were not covered by the general retail award and that their allegations have to be run individually. 

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. 

A Federal Court judge has pulled the plug on a bid by the Fair Work Ombudsman for an upcoming trial in wage cases against supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths to be livestreamed like other hearings of public interest in the court.

Discount retail chain The Reject Shop has become the latest Australian company to be stung with an underpayments class action.

Hospitality giant Merivale is contesting a bid by the applicant in a $129 million underpayments class action to issue a second opt out notice to employees, which it said was an attempt to ensure group members “take an interest” in the proceedings.

The fees of a class action firm found to have breached cost disclosure rules in running two underpayments class actions against supermarket chain Romeo’s have been adjusted up, after $260,000 was initially cut from the bill by the Federal Court.