The Australian High Court has unanimously dismissed an appeal from a judgment of a full court of the Federal Court of Australia that concerned whether a decision by Qantas Airways to outsource its ground handling operations at ten Australian airports contravened the Fair Work Act 2009.
The outsourcing decision resulted in ground handling services then being performed by employees of Qantas and Qantas Ground Services (QGS), many of whom were members of the Transport Workers Union of Australia (TWU), would instead be performed by staff of third-party suppliers.
The Federal Court originally found that while there were valid and lawful commercial reasons for the outsourcing, it could not rule out that Qantas also had an unlawful reason – namely, avoiding future industrial action. The High Court has now effectively upheld this interpretation.
In a statement, Qantas said that it “acknowledges and accepts the High Court’s decision to uphold two prior rulings by the Federal Court regarding the legality of outsourcing the remainder of the airline’s ground handling function in 2020”.
Qantas explained that its decision to outsource the remainder of the airline’s ground handling function was made in August 2020, “when borders were closed, lockdowns were in place and no COVID vaccine existed. The likelihood of a years’ long crisis led Qantas to restructure its business to improve its ability to survive and ultimately recover”.
“As we have said from the beginning, we deeply regret the personal impact the outsourcing decision had on all those affected and we sincerely apologise for that,” stated Qantas. “A prior decision by the Federal Court has ruled out reinstatement of workers but it will now consider penalties for the breach and compensation for relevant employees, which will factor in redundancy payments already made by Qantas.”