Australian carrier Qantas will have to pay a historic fine for mishandling hundreds of layoffs during the height of the covid-19 pandemic, according to a court ruling on Monday.
On August 18, an Australian federal court ordered the airline to pay a whopping $90 million AUD (about $58 million USD) for illegally laying off 1,820 ground crew in 2020. The fine is the largest-ever levied by a court against a company in the history of Australia’s labor laws, according to Reuters.
Australian Federal Court Judge Michael Lee said the fine was about 75% of the maximum amount he could have levied.
The majority of the fine—about $50 million AUD—will be paid to the Transport Workers' Union, the organization representing the ground staff that originally brought the suit against Qantas. "This record-breaking penalty reflects the monumental scale of Qantas’ wrongdoing," said Josh Bornstein, a principal at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, which represented the union in the lawsuit. Back in 2020, the carrier decided to lay off their employees and outsource its ground staff work to contractors.
In 2021, a federal court in Australia ruled the airline’s decision was an “adverse action” under the nation’s labor laws, which prevented workers from unionizing and exercising other workplace rights. At the time, the airline appealed that decision but its appeal was overturned in September 2023.
Now the airline said it accepts the court’s judgement and acknowledges that its actions in 2020 “caused real harm” to its employees. “We sincerely apologise to each and every one of the 1,820 ground handling employees and to their families who suffered as a result,” Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson said.
The carrier said it would pay the $90 million AUD fine in accordance with the court ruling. Qantas also paid $120 million AUD into a compensation fund for the affected employees in late 2024.
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