Almost 1,700 illegally sacked Qantas workers would have been retrenched following year, court hears
Legal proceedings to determine compensation for almost 1,700 workers illegally sacked by Qantas have heard the airline would have still outsourced the jobs the following year due to financial targets and Australia’s tight Covid restrictions. Compensation hearings continued on Wednesday to resolve the years-long legal battle between the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and Qantas over its decision to outsource jobs across 10 airports in late 2020. The federal court found the move to be illegal because it acted against protections in the Fair Work Act, and was in part driven by a desire to avoid industrial action. Qantas unsuccessfully appealed against the decision to the full bench of the court, and later the high court. The matter has now returned to the federal court where Justice Michael Lee will determine compensation entitlements for the 1,683 outsourced ground handlers and penalties the airline must pay. Each side is presenting counterfactuals as to what would have occurred if the illegal outsourcing did not occur in 2020, with three test cases of retrenched workers also heard. Qantas, in making the argument the workers would have been retrenched regardless the following year, is seeking to downplay the amount of money its workers would have earned had the unlawful outsourcing not occurred. Meanwhile, the TWU has suggested total compensation could exceed $100m. On Wednesday, Colin Hughes, who was executive general manager of airports at Qantas at the time of the outsourcing decision and later went on to serve as the airline’s chief operating officer, continued giving evidence before Lee. Hughes said if he had been in the decision-making position in 2021 and the ground-handling jobs had remained in-house, there would still have been strong commercial reasons in “the context of the pandemic” for choosing to outsource the roles. He said he interpreted legal advice on the outsourcing decision as carrying a low legal risk, but still expected a legal challenge from the TWU.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2024-03-21/oneworld/almost-1-700-illegally-sacked-qantas-workers-would-have-been-retrenched-following-year-court-hears
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Almost 1,700 illegally sacked Qantas workers would have been retrenched following year, court hears
Legal proceedings to determine compensation for almost 1,700 workers illegally sacked by Qantas have heard the airline would have still outsourced the jobs the following year due to financial targets and Australia’s tight Covid restrictions. Compensation hearings continued on Wednesday to resolve the years-long legal battle between the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and Qantas over its decision to outsource jobs across 10 airports in late 2020. The federal court found the move to be illegal because it acted against protections in the Fair Work Act, and was in part driven by a desire to avoid industrial action. Qantas unsuccessfully appealed against the decision to the full bench of the court, and later the high court. The matter has now returned to the federal court where Justice Michael Lee will determine compensation entitlements for the 1,683 outsourced ground handlers and penalties the airline must pay. Each side is presenting counterfactuals as to what would have occurred if the illegal outsourcing did not occur in 2020, with three test cases of retrenched workers also heard. Qantas, in making the argument the workers would have been retrenched regardless the following year, is seeking to downplay the amount of money its workers would have earned had the unlawful outsourcing not occurred. Meanwhile, the TWU has suggested total compensation could exceed $100m. On Wednesday, Colin Hughes, who was executive general manager of airports at Qantas at the time of the outsourcing decision and later went on to serve as the airline’s chief operating officer, continued giving evidence before Lee. Hughes said if he had been in the decision-making position in 2021 and the ground-handling jobs had remained in-house, there would still have been strong commercial reasons in “the context of the pandemic” for choosing to outsource the roles. He said he interpreted legal advice on the outsourcing decision as carrying a low legal risk, but still expected a legal challenge from the TWU.<br/>
