Qantas has been found to have illegally sacked more than 1600 workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The High Court judgment handed down on Wednesday upheld two rulings made by the Federal Court, which found the outsourcing of baggage handlers, cleaners and ground staff was unlawful.
Justices Kiefel, Gageler, Gleeson and Jagot said in the judgment anyone who took “adverse action against another person for a substantial and operative reason of preventing the exercise of a workplace right by the other person contravenes (part of section 340 of the Fair Work Act) … regardless of whether that other person has the relevant workplace right at the time the adverse action is taken”.
“Qantas did not avoid the operation of (the section) in relation to its adverse action by taking the action prior to the existence of the workplace rights the exercise of which Qantas sought to thwart.”
Sacked workers inside the courtroom, pumped their fists in victory upon hearing the decision.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus, who attended the judgment, posted a celebratory photo on social media saying: “The workers win against Qantas in the High Court. We will always have the backs of workers.”
Qantas was found in the Federal Court to have breached the Fair Work Act in outsourcing its ground operations to avoid enterprise bargaining rights, after the Transport Workers’ Union took legal action against the carrier.
The airline, which retrenched workers in 2020, lost billions of dollars due to the pandemic, which decimated the aviation sector.
Justin Gleeson SC for Qantas, told the High Court in May the airline’s revenue stream had been shattered by the pandemic which left it “bleeding cash”.
The airline has since posted an underlying profit of almost $2.5 billion in the past financial year.
Qantas argued it could not have breached the workplace rights of the employees, as they did not have the right to take protected industrial action at the time of the decision to outsource.
Source: AAP
