“Obviously, no amount of compensation will mean we get our jobs back,” he said, noting that compensation for the economic loss and pain and suffering will help, as “many of us have struggled financially since we were outsourced”.
Pollard said after being fired by Qantas he tried to stay in aviation. “But the reality of returning to work in aviation, with another company, with different standards, was hard to adjust to, so I left that employment.”
Other Qantas workers received no compensation after the 2020 lay-offs because they had recently signed an EBA, which meant they weren’t eligible for the lawsuit.
A Qantas employee, who left in 2020, said: “We all saw it coming and many were prepared for it and knew the writing was on the wall.
“That being said, yeah, I’d like a handful of cash; however, I’d never return.
“I’m disgusted at the airline’s treatment of hard-working employees who sacrificed so much for the company,” he said.
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The $90 million penalty to be paid by Qantas is on top of a $120 million in compensation that Qantas agreed to pay in 2024. The $120 million compensation figure includes a $9000 uniform payment for all the affected 1820 workers.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn is determining how much additional compensation the illegally sacked 1820 ground crew workers will get for their economic losses. This comprises money they lost from being made redundant.
It will be decided on an individual basis with the total based on the impact in each case, which has a range of variables, including whether the employee could find work again. Sacked workers will also be eligible for compensation for non-economic loss, or hurt and suffering, from their abrupt 2020 firing by Qantas.
In assessing the level of compensation, Maurice Blackburn will also consider if the ex-Qantas employee found work soon after losing their job, or instead struggled to find suitable work. For those close to retirement, the considerations are different again.
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While handing down the penalties ruling on Monday, Judge Michael Lee wrote: “Let us ponder the circumstances of one sacked, healthy and motivated 60-year-old man who very much wanted to continue work, had a mortgage and other living expenses to pay, a wife to support, and who still wished to provide some measure of financial support to his children. He wanted to remain a baggage handler until he was much older but cannot now secure such a role.”
This sacked worker could take a course of vocational training to retrain for a different role, said Lee, but those costs wouldn’t be “properly recoverable as statutory compensation”.
In the penalties case, the TWU submitted that, after paying down its own legal costs, the $50 million would probably be used to “‘test cases or other significant litigation’ which affects a large cohort of members or has wider significance for workers the union is eligible to represent”.
The TWU would also be likely to fund industry-wide campaigns for the employment and industrial interests of members, legislative reform campaigns, and campaigns requiring large-scale public engagement “to achieve systemic change or improved conditions for a large number of members”.
“Additionally, the union is said to be focused on achieving greater protections and entitlements for many workers in the ‘gig’ economy”, according to court papers.
Sources close to the TWU say that at the outset of the case the union didn’t think it would prevail, but felt it had to at least put up resistance to Qantas’ seemingly opportunistic sacking of the ground crew in 2020 amid the COVID-19 response.
Professor of Work and Regulation at Queensland University of Technology Andrew Stewart said the TWU can use the $50 million however it likes, and that includes training, lawsuits, and new campaigns.
“If there are cases to be run, they will run,” Stewart says. “How many cases are out there? I don’t know.”
While Stewart expects the Qantas case to have an impact on the litigation strategy of the TWU and other unions, the nature of firings during COVID make the lawsuit unique.
The Qantas case could be a “one-off” in part because of Qantas’ relationship with its employees, which it has sought to outsource for some time.
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