Australia: Federal Court fines Qantas $90 million for illegally outsourcing ground handling workforce
In a landmark verdict, Australia’s Federal Court has fined Qantas $90 million for illegally sacking 1,820 ground crew in 2020—on top of a prior $120 million compensation fund agreement—marking the largest workplace law breach in the nation’s history. This outcome is not a triumph of justice, but a begrudging concession in an enduring class conflict.
Capital, embodied by Qantas executives, wields layoffs and outsourcing as strategic maneuvers to dismantle union strength and suppress labor demands—even while cloaked in pandemic-era crisis rhetoric. During the pandemic Qantas received more than $ 1.5 billion total share of taxpayer funding from the Australian Federal government. The court’s scolding of Qantas for its “lack of genuine remorse” and “manipulative legal tactics” underscores the ruthless calculus of profit against human need.
Yet while the state briefly reins in corporate excess, its legal architecture continues to weaponise against workers. Consider the recent Fair Work “Closing Loopholes” reforms, which, despite introducing protections such as the “right to disconnect,” new definitions of casual employment, expanded gig-worker rights, and anti-sham-contracting rules, remain limited in scope and enforcement. Meanwhile, “wage theft” has only recently become a criminal offense—with penalties including millions in fines and up to 10-year prison terms for deliberate under-payments—revealing how slow and reactive legislative protections remain under capitalism.
Moreover, the Fair Work Commission’s authority to set minimum standards for gig economy and road-transport contractors, and to address unfair terminations, represents a grudging recognition of precarious labor—but only for the most vulnerable, not for workers in more stable sectors.
Meanwhile, the state hasn’t retreated from repressing union power. The Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Act 2024 placed the CFMEU’s construction division into administration, a punitive intervention that weakens worker organisation under the disguise of “clean-up”. And the Opposition threatens to reverse fair provisions like the “right to disconnect” and casual-definition reforms—demonstrating how labor gains remain precarious and politically contested.
The Qantas settlement—though a rare blowback on a giant company—is merely a transactional concession. True liberation will arise only through mass collective struggle, abolition of profit as a motive, and workers’ direct control over industries. Let this moment be a catalyst for deeper class consciousness, not a comforting distraction.
