It’s been a four-year legal stoush between 1,820 Qantas groundcrew workers illegally sacked during the dramas of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now the Federal Court has thrown the book at the airline, slapping a $120 million compensation fine on the flying kangaroo!

Of course, this is another ‘get even’ on former CEO Alan Joyce, who was the architect of the plan to save money when the airline had lost most of its business because of local and global lockdowns. The trouble was Joyce broke the law pertaining to employees. Thankfully, the legal system saw that justice was served.

The company’s new CEO Vanessa Hudson has apologised for her predecessor’s mistakes. “We know this has been a difficult period for those affected and are pleased we have been able to work closely with the TWU to expedite this process and resolve it ahead of Christmas,” Hudson said.

This is timely news for those unfairly dismissed workers, but it has been a long time coming, and Qantas has fought to avoid compensating the workers.

Here’s a rundown of the four-year legal battle summarised by abc.net.au:

1. Justice Michael Lee ruled in October that Qantas would be required to pay varying degrees of compensation based on three employee “test cases”.
2. This came after two appeals were lodged by Qantas against previous verdicts.
3. And there was the High Court finding in 2023 that found the airline broke the law when it stood down its ground crew members.

Justice Lee looked at the three “test cases” and decided that there should be payouts of $30,000, $40,000 and $100,000, showing how significant these sackings were to these workers and, ultimately, their families.

The $120 million will also compensate the Transport Workers Union for the costs of fighting the case, so lawyers have benefitted from the Joyce illegal sackings.

This industrial relations episode hasn’t just been a terrible experience for the affected workers and an industrial relations disaster for Qantas, it explains why its brand has crash-landed in recent years.

Early this year, thenewdaily.com.au reported the following: “Qantas has suffered a huge plunge in the estimated value of its brand after a horror year dealing with lawsuits and waves of public criticism, falling 22 places in the national rankings. It’s a long fall from grace for Qantas, which in 2019 was rated Australia’s strongest brand”.

But the big news revelation is that it has not hurt its share price as the chart below shows. When the Covid lockdowns cruelled the business lives of many big and small companies, the value of those companies nosedived.

In fact, the Qantas share price hit a low of $2.36 after being just short of $8 before covid hit. But despite the demolishing of the company’s brand, it is today flying high at $9.07!

As Professor Julius Sumner Miller used to ask: “Why is it so?”

Qantas

This underlines the sorry state of airline competition in this country and screams that governments going forward need to better regulate this critically important industry, which not only slugs consumers but also businesses and their bottom lines.