Qantas fined €50m for illegally sacking ground staff

Irish Examiner

2 days ago

Qantas has been fined a record $90m (€50.2m) for illegally firing 1,820 baggage handlers and other ground staff in 2020, taking the cost of its controversial outsourcing decision to more than $200m (€111.5m).
Justice Michael Lee on Monday handed down his decision on the penalty, nine months after Qantas and the Transport Workers' Union agreed the airline would pay $120m in compensation to the sacked workers.
Reading his judgment in the federal court in Sydney, Lee said the $90m (€50.2m) penalty was 'slightly less than 75% off the maximum penalty', and that $50m of the penalty would go to the TWU.
Lee said allocating a significant proportion of the fine would incentivise unions to pursue potential breaches of the enhance the Fair Work Act when the federal ombudsman failed to act, as he said it had in the case of Qantas.
'It will send a message to Qantas and other well-resourced employers that not only will they face potentially significant penalties for the breach of the act, but those penalties will be provided to trade unions to resource [them] to fulfil their statutory roles as enforcers of the act,' he said.
Lee reserved his decision on who should receive the other $40m.
He described the lengthy legal battle between the TWU and Qantas as 'no ordinary case' and said he had 'hesitation in reaching a conclusion' as to whether Qantas was 'truly contrite or rather engaging in performative remorse'.
'I do think persons of responsibility within Qantas do now have some genuine regrets but this more likely reflects the damage this case has done to the company, rather than a remorse for the damage done to the affected workers,' Lee said.
Lee said he felt a 'sense of disquiet and uncertainty as to precisely what went on within the upper echelons of Qantas leading up to the outsourcing decision' and described the airline as 'the wrong kind of sorry'.
Among the reasons Lee gave for imposing the record penalty was the airline's attempts to obscure the decision-making process behind the outsourcing and the role the then chief executive officer, Dubliner Alan Joyce, had played.
Lee was also critical of the way Qantas handled the legal process, saying its public relations department had rushed to send out press releases 'spinning' court decisions in the airline's favour.
He criticised the decision not to have Vanessa Hudson, the airline's former chief financial officer and now chief executive, testify in court.
Lee said her evidence would have helped him assess whether the airline's 'expressions of contrition' and its promises of cultural change were genuine.
After the decision, Hudson said the outsourcing decision had 'caused genuine hardship' for the affected people.
'We sincerely apologise to each and every one of the 1,820 ground handling employees and to their families who suffered as a result,' she said.
'Over the past 18 months we've worked hard to change the way we operate … This remains our highest priority as we work to earn back the trust we lost.' The $90m penalty will be paid in accordance with the orders of the court.
Qantas has also paid $120m into the compensation fund for all affected former employees, which is being administered by Maurice Blackburn.
The TWU national secretary, Michael Kaine, said the union had won a 'David and Goliath' battle and secured 'the most significant industrial outcome in Australia's history'.
The Guardian