Qantas can keep outsourcing, but should it?

afr.com:

Qantas will need to think carefully how it balances its social obligations with its cost rationalisation program, but it is not prevented from continuing to outsource workers after the High Court denied its appeal, a leading academic says.

Senior professor at the Sydney Business School of the University of Wollongong, Paul Gollan, said Qantas would need to be much more engaged with its workers to deliver clearer messages about the motivations for outsourcing and commercial imperatives, to ward against the perception that it was acting to bust up industrial action.

Professor Paul Gollan says Qantas can still outsource, but he questions the economic benefits. James Brickwood

“They need to be very clear what their motivations are and what their aims are – otherwise it might be interpreted in the way it has been,” Professor Gollan said.

The High Court made no findings on the reasons for the outsourcing, but Justice Michael Lee in the Federal Court did determine that companies could consider the potential for union strikes as an operational risk. However, they could not use it as a reason to act against workers.

Marque Lawyers agreed the ruling does not prevent employers from making tough decisions that would limit or extinguish employees’ rights.

“The High Court expressed sympathy for Qantas, appreciating the outsourcing decision had its commercial reasons at the height of the pandemic,” Marque Lawyers partner Wesley Rogers said.

“And, had Qantas been able to show that the outsourcing arrangement was wholly due to economic pressures and did not have the aim, even if secondary, of extinguishing workers’ rights, it would have been lawful. Qantas did not show this.

“The lesson for employers is to recognise the reasons for