The Covid-19 pandemic drastically affected business operations and job losses were frequent. The terms getting fired, being made redundant and being stood down were often featured in the news (check out our blog article for more information on these terms here). As a result, many lawsuits have arisen from the pandemic time period in relation to employment.
One such lawsuit is The Transport Workers’ Union and Qantas.
As reported by Nine News, The Transport Workers’ Union pursued Qantas in the Federal Court after the company decided to outsource almost 1700 ground staff jobs in November 2020. After redundancies commenced, these employees were eventually all removed out of the airline by March 2021.
Recently, Justice Michael Lee ordered Qantas pay $170,000 to three employees who were used as test cases during a lengthy hearing in March and May. This is considered a landmark compensation ruling for former Qantas employees.
In July 2021, the judge found the lay-offs were designed to deprive workers of being able to bargain for a new enterprise agreement and, as such, contravened employment law. (Read more here)
An Enterprise Agreement is between one or more national system employers and their employees, as specified in the agreement.
Enterprise agreements are negotiated by the parties through collective bargaining in good faith, primarily at the enterprise level. Under the Fair Work Act 2009, an enterprise can mean any kind of business, activity, project or undertaking.
Under the Fair Work Act 2009, the following new enterprise agreements can be made:
- Single-enterprise agreement
- Multi-enterprise agreement
- Greenfields agreement
To read more on Enterprise Agreements, Registered Agreements, Awards and Employment Contracts, click here.
The amounts these former Qantas workers receive is hoped to form the basis for the total amount that Qantas agrees to pay the affected staff in future negotiations with the TWU. The matter will return to court on November 15, when the judge will hear submissions about the total compensation sum payable by Qantas.
This isn’t the first lawsuit Qantas has faced since the pandemic. Earlier this year the ACCC reached a $120 million settlement with them over the airline selling cancelled flights.
You can read more about that here.
