Qantas Airways, Australia’s largest airline, has been fined A$90 million ($58.6 million) for illegally dismissing nearly 1,800 ground staff and outsourcing their roles during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Court of Australia ruled on Monday.
The ruling marks one of the largest penalties ever imposed under Australia’s workplace laws and follows years of legal battles between the airline and the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), which represented the dismissed employees.
In delivering the decision, Federal Court Judge Michael Lee stressed that the punishment was intended to send a strong signal to Qantas and other corporations considering similar actions. “My present focus is on achieving real deterrence — including general deterrence to large public companies which might be tempted to ‘get away’ with contravening conduct because the rewards may outweigh the downside risk,” Lee said in his summary judgment. He added that the fine must not be seen as “anything like the cost of doing business.”
Of the total fine, A$50 million ($32.6 million) will be directed to the TWU, which brought the case on behalf of the 1,820 sacked workers. The court’s decision comes less than a year after Qantas and the TWU reached a separate A$120 million ($78.2 million) settlement to compensate affected staff.
The case stems from Qantas’s 2020 decision to cut thousands of jobs as international and domestic travel came to a halt due to pandemic-related restrictions. The airline argued the move was necessary to preserve its financial viability at the time, but the High Court later ruled that Qantas had acted unlawfully by outsourcing the positions to contractors.
The TWU welcomed the decision, saying it delivered long-overdue justice to the workers. “This ruling sends a clear message that corporations cannot use a crisis as cover to strip people of their livelihoods and replace them with cheaper labor,” the union said in a statement.
Qantas shares dipped 0.13 percent in early Monday trading following the announcement. The airline, which has faced criticism over customer service issues and executive pay in recent years, has not yet commented on whether it will appeal the fine.
For many former employees, the judgment provides closure to a bitter dispute that highlighted the tension between cost-cutting measures during the pandemic and workers’ rights. Judge Lee’s ruling underscores the importance of corporate accountability and signals that Australia’s workplace laws will be enforced rigorously against even its most high-profile companies.
