The full Federal Court has rejected a Qantas challenge to a Federal Magistrates Court 
decision that it coerced and took adverse action against an aircraft engineer who complained about being underpaid while on an overseas posting.
The full court found that Federal Magistrate Raphael was correct in his findings and rejected the Qantas’ contention that it was denied procedural fairness.
Federal Magistrate Raphael found the Qantas employee, a licensed aircraft engineer and ALAEA member, was subjected to adverse action after returning to his home base of Brisbane from working a six weeks posting at Japan’s Narita International Airport (Narita).
The engineer made a claim for time off in lieu and payment for additional hours worked while at Narita. Qantas rejected the claim and the engineer sought to commence the dispute resolution clause of the Enterprise Agreement. One day later, Qantas suspended all overseas postings of Brisbane-based engineers.
The ALAEA took action in response to the suspension and to a subsequent heated phone call between the engineer and a Qantas manager in which the manager allegedly said that future postings would only be granted to engineers who did not make time off in lieu claims.
The full court found that Federal Magistrate Raphael was correct in his findings and that Qantas had not been denied procedural fairness during, or as a result of correspondence after, the case. The full court decision is significant in clarifying that altering a person’s position to their prejudice is a ‘broad concept’. Even though there were no fixed future overseas postings, the decision by Qantas meant there were no ‘possible’ postings at all, which was a detriment to the engineer.
The case also considered that the phone conversation with the senior manager demonstrated an attempt to intimidate the engineer and make him withdraw a legitimate complaint.
The full court said Qantas bore the onus “of proving that it did not suspend the overseas posting for a reason which included the reason that [the engineer] had made the claims for payment or invoked the dispute resolution procedure.” It said that Qantas made “no attempts” during the appeal hearing to demonstrate that Federal Magistrate Raphael’s conclusion was erroneous, “glaringly improbable or contrary to compelling inferences“.
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One response to “Federal Court Upholds Adverse Action Finding Against Qantas”
I am very surprised to discover that Federal Magistrate Raphael has taken a stand against bullying in the workplace. When I appeared before him in 2002 (after the seizure of my tools by functionaries of a lawyer-led corporation operating a protection racket) he felt that it was perfectly reasonable for the lawyer’s men to “rough me up” while taking the tools, and to then attempt to end my life when I climbed into the back of a truck in an attempt to recover them. He felt that my behaviour (ignoring the lawyer-led’s instruction that I should desist from my attempts to access my rights under s20 of the Water Act (NSW)) was absolutely disgraceful. He further felt that it was totally unreasonable of me to expect an award for damages for injuries received following my attempt to recover the tools. Is this really the same Raphael FM?