Embattled national airline Qantas had a “laser-like focus on saving money by any means” before they unlawfully sacked ground service staff, a court has been told. The flying kangaroo was thrice found to have acted unlawfully when it fired 1700 staff in favour of outsourced contractors during the height of the Covid pandemic. Qantas returned to the Federal Court on Wednesday as it battles the Transport Workers Union over the amount of compensation to be paid to former staffers.
Debate largely focused on counterfactuals presented by both Qantas and the TWU, which seek to establish what would have happened had the staff not been outsourced. Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion. Qantas’ lawyer said evidence presented to the court showed the decision would have likely been made in 2021, the following year, given the ongoing Covid pandemic.
“They were staring into the abyss at that time. They had already suffered a calamitous loss, and were looking at least four months of dramatic losses,” they said. “The unfortunate reality is that 2021 turned out to be very similar to 2020.
The fundamentals of the risk-to-reward calculus were not at all materially different. “The commercial benefits were more important and urgent (in 2021) than they were in 2020 (and) the risk factors were not considered materially different”. The court was told it had “special insight” because Qantas’ experience in 2021 “mirrored” that of .