Qantas fined A$90m for illegal layoffs during pandemic

An Australian court docket has fined airline large Qantas A$90m (£43m; $59m) for illegally sacking greater than 1,800 floor staff through the Covid-19 pandemic.Australia’s Transport Staff’ Union mentioned it welcomed the ruling, which it mentioned marked the biggest employer penalty within the nation’s historical past.Federal Court docket Justice Michael Lee mentioned within the judgement that he wished the positive to behave as a “actual deterrence” to different employers.The airline mentioned in a press release that it has agreed to pay the positive and that the ruling holds it accountable for actions that brought on “actual hurt” to its staff.”We sincerely apologise to every one of many 1,820 floor dealing with staff and to their households who suffered in consequence,” Qantas Group chief govt Vanessa Hudson mentioned.”The choice to outsource 5 years in the past, significantly throughout such an unsure time, brought on real hardship for a lot of of our former workforce and their households.”Australia’s largest airline has confronted a years-long authorized battle over its choice in 2020 to outsource its floor operations workers, which it mentioned was a essential monetary measure because the aviation business got here to a standstill through the pandemic.Qantas was ordered by the court docket to pay A$50m of the penalty on to the transport staff’ union, which had sued the airline over the layoffs.The choice marked the “finish of a David and Goliath five-year battle” and is a “second of justice for loyal staff who’d beloved their jobs on the airline,” mentioned the transport union in a press release.The positive is near the utmost penalty that may be imposed for breaching Australia’s office legal guidelines.Choose Lee mentioned the positive imposed is supposed discourage different massive corporations from pondering they will “get away” with such strikes, even when they assume the advantages is likely to be definitely worth the threat of getting caught.In court docket paperwork, he questioned Qantas’ company tradition, noting the agency’s “unrelenting and aggressive” authorized technique as an indication of efforts to keep away from paying any compensation to staff it beforehand mentioned it felt sorry for.In 2021, the court docket discovered that Qantas had partly outsourced its workforce to restrict staff’ taking industrial motion. Most of the axed staff had been union members.The penalty is on high of A$120m of compensation that Qantas had agreed to pay to laid off staff in 2024, after dropping a number of appeals in court docket.The unlawful sackings had been amongst a number of scandals involving the airline lately. Final yr, Qantas was ordered to pay A$100m for promoting tickets on hundreds of flights it had already determined to cancel.