A court in Australia ordered the country’s airline, Qantas Airways, to pay a fine of $58.64 million for having illegally terminated the employment of 1,800 of its ground staff during the pandemic. The airline has also been criticised for having felt no remorse.
While Qantas had maintained that the terminations were a commercial decision, the Federal Court in 2021 had thought that the employees had been stopped from exercising their rights at work and were prevented from unionising. By doing so, Qantas had, therefore, gone against Australia’s Fair Work Act.
Since the employees had been sacked without an appropriate process or adequate reason, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) had decided to file a case so that the issue could be investigated. The court found that not only had Qantas not compensated the affected employees, it had not given them notice periods either.
This is probably the heaviest fine ever paid under Australia’s labour laws till date. The court also observed that while Qantas claimed to be sorry, it was more a sense of regret due to the harm done to its reputation and image than to the employees who had been rendered jobless. The airline has been ordered to compensate the impacted employees for the mental and financial stress caused to them due to the sacking.
Federal Court Judge Michael Lee reportedly ruled that A$50 million from the fine amount will go to the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), which had filed the case against Qantas.
“We sincerely apologise to each and every one of the 1,820 ground-handling employees and to their families,” stated Vanessa Hudson, chief executive, Qantas.
