Qantas taken to High Court over COVID-19 sick leave
Tony Yoo | December 23, 2020 11:29am |
More on: Image source: Getty Images
Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) will face off against employees in the High Court of Australia on Wednesday.
Four unions are appealing against a Full Federal Court decision last month that the airline did not have to provide sick, compassionate or carer’s leave for staff that had been stood down.
Qantas stood down about 20,000 employees at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when it became apparent its planes would be grounded.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) claims Qantas’ denial forced some seriously ill workers to take a redundancy for financial reasons.
Unions to take Qantas to High Court over COVID-19 pandemic sick leave for workers
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DecDecember 2020 at 2:17am
The Qantas sick leave case could have far reaching consequences on whether other employers have to pay workers such entitlements.
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Unions representing Qantas workers will go to the High Court seeking to overturn a ruling that employees are not entitled to sick leave or compassionate leave while they were stood down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Key points:
Qantas is being taken to the High Court by four unions on whether it must pay stood down airline workers sick leave
Top union bureaucrat in Australia lashes out at WSWS article
Obviously stung by the criticisms of the close collaboration of the unions with the Liberal-National Coalition government, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus claimed in a tweet that a WSWS article published last week contained “untruths” in every sentence.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus [Credit: actu.org.au]
The article detailed the staggering hypocrisy behind McManus’s oppositional posturing over a recently unveiled omnibus industrial relations bill, when she had been in months of secret talks with big business and government representatives to help design it.
McManus responded to the article on December 17 through her Twitter profile @sallymcmanus, declaring: “It is truly a feat to pack in a least [sic] two untruths per paragraphs [sic] (esp when the paras go for two sentences), but you have managed it.”
It involves a number of “reforms” that clearly increase profits for business and attack conditions and pay for workers, particularly those in casual and insecure work the very workers hit hardest by the COVID-19 lockdowns and those most likely to have been essential workers during that time.
The first bill was carried easily, with the full support of the Australian Labor Party.
The second will face greater challenges as it was not even discussed with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and it ignores the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT).
The Socialist Alliance believes that both pieces of legislation are dangerous and should be opposed.