Unemployed and unpaid: what the fate of sacked Qantas workers tells us

What do Qantas, labour law firm Maurice Blackburn, or the Transport Workers Union have in common?

None would tolerate a lengthy delay, with little explanation given, if they were in line to get a significant sum of compensation for an egregious, life-altering breach of their rights.

But, this isn’t the case for the 1822 illegally sacked Qantas workers who were turfed out of their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They have been promised $35 million in penalty payments and $120 million from a compensation fund. Six years after wrongly being forced out of work by Qantas, five years after the move was ruled illegal, and almost two years after a major chunk of the compensation was first agreed, they still haven’t been paid.

It’s hard to imagine the other protagonists in this saga being forced to accept their fate as blindly as these workers.

It took intervention from Justice Michael Lee of the Federal Court earlier this month to ensure the workers’ $35 million in penalty payments were decoupled from the $120 million compensation fund that has become mired in technicalities, allowing the smaller chunk of money to be paid out quickly.

Maurice Blackburn had represented the TWU and its members in its case against Qantas, and then oversaw the administration of the employees’ compensation. After nailing the case, the firm has fumbled the administration.

When Maurice Blackburn informed Lee of a delay in the weeks preceding the July 31 deadline, he immediately ordered a hearing to ask why the firm hadn’t advised the court of the hitches as soon as possible? Why, in other words, did there appear to be so little urgency from the class action giant that brands itself as “fighting for fair”?

Maurice Blackburn’s lawyers explained that the process got hung up both by a string of legally insufficient independent medical assessments of the fired workers and questions about how to repay Services Australia for treatment the employees had already accessed.

There is a tension between the lawful requirement for accurate compensation based on a worker’s history, and a more timely resolution, but why not tell the judge about the issue and sort it out? As Lee said on August 6: “One can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Many of the 1800 sacked Qantas workers have taken a financial punch from their dismissal and not really recovered. A large proportion are doing so late in their careers when their options are constrained. Getting compensation isn’t just about the elegance of justice, the money is needed to inject some financial breathing space in their lives.

On August 6, Lee told the sacked workers, “Your payment will be made within the next few business days into the bank account you previously provided to Maurice Blackburn.”

He appointed another firm William Roberts Lawyers in August, to oversee the fine component of the case, such was Lee’s apparent level of faith in the larger firm.

On Thursday, William Roberts Lawyers asked for another delay to the payments so they could include more ex-workers, or their heirs.