TWU va face eforturi pentru ca 2,000 de lucrători Qantas dispăruți să se întoarcă

The TWU has told Australian Aviation it will push for Qantas to rehire the 2,000 workers it made redundant following its historic court victory.

The union’s national secretary, Michael Kaine, denied there would be too much ill-feeling between the airline and ex-employees for them to come back.

“They’ll believe they can come back and see off this management team and be part of rebuilding the company to one that’s not only great in terms of shareholder value but great in terms of being a model employer,” he said.

It comes after Federal Court judge Justice Michael Lee on Friday ruled that while Qantas likely didn’t outsource roles purely to “hobble industrial influence”, it could have been a factor on a balance of probabilities.

That decision means outsourced employees could potentially regain their jobs or receive compensation because the Legea privind munca echitabilă has been breached, though that has yet to be determined. Qantas has indicated it will appeal.

Kaine said the former employees had been slammed from pillar to post over the decision to outsource their roles.

“It was not just a reprehensible act, it was an illegal act,” he said. “There’s not in any sense triumphalism today.

“There is actually a sense of great regret, that the work that they’ve put into this company for so many years, has been undermined by a management team that has gone rampant.

“And this judgment is full of references to inappropriate action of Qantas management that has today been found to be illegal. And what we’ll be doing now, of course, is following through on the orders that were applied for in the court, and that is that these workers be reinstated.”

Qantas responded to the decision by arguing the TWU had a “persecution complex” and said it will “oppose any such orders” to reinstate workers or pay compensation.

“I think that is an unfortunate intervention by Qantas,” said Kaine. “It really does seem as if they are shocked that a union and a workforce stood up to them and exercised not only their legal rights appropriately, but go to the courts and asked the courts to apply an objective lens over the conduct of Qantas.

“And their conduct has been found, not only to be short of a moral standard, it has been found to be short of the legal standard. And what Qantas should be doing now rather than spitting out aggressive and spiteful press releases, is to sit down with the workforce that it targeted to get rid of.”

Qantas earlier argued it “fundamentally disagrees with this judgment” and would appeal.

Atât Qantas, cât și Jetstar au eliminat operațiunile de handling la sol în acest an pe aeroporturile australiene unde munca s-a desfășurat intern, care a inclus Sydney, Melbourne și Brisbane, transferându-le către afaceri externe, inclusiv Swissport și dnata.

TWU l-a angajat pe avocatul pentru litigii Waterfront, Josh Bornstein, pentru a susține că acțiunile companiei aeriene au încălcat Legea privind munca echitabilă deoarece angajații noilor companii nu mai au dreptul la condiții garantate prin acorduri de întreprindere. Qantas a negat în mod constant că a făcut ceva ilegal.

Bornstein a numit decizia ca fiind mai întâi legală.

„Curtea Federală a constatat pentru prima dată că un angajator important a concediat peste 2000 de lucrători pentru că încerca să-i priveze de capacitatea de a negocia colectiv cu compania pentru un nou acord de întreprindere”, a spus el.

„Este, de asemenea, prima provocare de succes pentru un exercițiu major de externalizare corporativă în ultimii 20 de ani. Am pus în judecată externalizarea Qantas, iar Qantas a pierdut. Companiile mari au folosit externalizarea de zeci de ani pentru a împiedica angajații să poată negocia colectiv cu ei.

„Ca urmare, angajații și-au pierdut capacitatea de a obține creșteri salariale adecvate. Odată ce Qantas și-a externalizat lucrătorii și i-a achiziționat indirect de la agenții de angajare a forței de muncă, nu a mai trebuit să se negocieze cu personalul de la sol.”

Source: https://australianaviation.com.au/2021/07/twu-will-push-for-2000-axed-qantas-workers-to-return/