What does it take to get fired in Australia?
Virgin Australia flight attendant, Dylan Macnish, has to be reinstated after an Australian employment tribunal ruled that his dismissal in February 2024 was unfair.
- He’s required to abstain from alcohol within 8 hours of reporting for duty. But according to the crewmember this was ‘more of a guideline’ than a strict policy. He drank at the airline’s Christmas party less than 8 hours prior to duty. But he self-reports having checked a breathalyzer prior to working the flight.
- He called out fatigued, pushing his schedule out later, and used a dating app to arrange sex. He claimed this would help him relax and sleep.
According to the Fair Work Commission, the airline’s reasons for terminating him are “mystifying” and that they were being overly harsh. After all, if he had called out from a flight to have heterosexual sex with a spouse rather than app-hookup sex the airline wouldn’t be making an issue of it (although if they’d have had reason to believe he was choosing not to work in order to prioritize personal time they certainly would be).
Surely, though, admitting to showing up for work in violation of an alcohol policy should be reason for dismissal? Not in Australia.
In 2022, Virgin Australia was ordered to reinstate a flight attendant who was fired for napping on the job; watching a movie inflight; showing up late to work and violating uniform standards; and taking food meant for passengers. According to the government the decision to fire her was “harsh, unjust and unreasonable.”
On one flight where she was training and being paid to observe service flow and duties of other crew she sat in the last row of the aircraft and watched a movie, “fell asleep and refused to return to a crew seat before the aircraft landed.” In her defense she claimed she didn’t need the training despite having been off from work for months due to the pandemic.
Earlier, a Qantas flight attendant was awarded about AU$33,000 because the government ruled it was unfair for him to be dismissed after stealing alcohol and lying about it. The man was a veritable Hunter S. Thompson, found with “a can and a bottle of beer in his jacket, two 50ml bottles of vodka in his trousers and a 50ml bottle of gin in his bag.” He claimed not to know how the beer in his jacket and vodka in his pants got there.
So what does it take to actually get fired from an airline in Australia?
- The workforce commission upheld the dismissal of a flight attendant who showed up drunk to work after 14 cocktails, but claimed he shouldn’t be held responsible because he was tempted by a bar’s drink specials and because he followed the airline’s instructions to fly home rather than working his assigned flight after being hospitalized.
- Qantas successfully fired a flight attendant who stole alcohol from the flight, got drunk while on the job, and lied about it. Though the government suggested merely drinking on the job wouldn’t have been enough. The crewmember claimed she bought the alcohol herself at duty free, that she continued working drunk ‘to avoid letting down her colleagues,’ and that firing was disproportionate to the offense.
One of the last things I’ve ever wanted in professional life is to be a California employer. I’ve had to fill out insurance applications at work that ask as a standalone question, “do you have any employees based in California?”
I lived in California as a teenager and my family was in the car business there. A mechanic in their repair shop once cheated on his wife. She confronted him when she learned he’d gotten an STD. So he went full on Shaggy Defense claiming to have gotten it at work – from a spider bite while fixing a car.
It did not matter that’s not how STDs work (they’re called sexually transmitted for a reason). Since he was fully committed to the workplace injury story with his wife, he had to go through with applying for workers comp. Since it was California.. he got it.
It turns out my working model for what never to do in life was too provincial. I don’t ever want to be an Australian employer either.
Australia Man to California Man: Hold My Beer. No wait I’ll drink it while working.
Really what has happened to Australia? First COVID concentration camps.
Soooo….. let me get this straight – whenever the horny hormone accelerates… it is A-OK to skip work. No repercussions whatsoever.
WOW!!!!
This has got to be the Dumbest mistake that the tribunal made-Allowing a worker to get re-hired by an airline company after this individual admitted to drinking before their shift- Major mistake in my view. This dumbass should NEVER have been re-hired at all
Calling out sick to do something else is not really exceptional in anyway. What’s with the moralizing? Drinking within the 8 hours, if it is not a rule, then also should not qualify him to be terminated here. One of Schwarzenegger’s marque reforms was WC reform. This article feels a bit like moralizing and detached.
Thank you for the conservative rant at the end that just parrots an urban legend that I’ve heard multiple times. Unfortunately this really casts a shadow on your journalistic integrity, especially when this blog is often calling for more regulation of the industry!
OK, let’s clarify a few things here. It was not the government who decided these things, but an independent tribunal – which is essentially like a court. And we don’t have elected judges here in Australia.
Australian, employers have a range of actions available to them short of terminating employment. Eliminating someone’s livelihood is a serious measure which can destroy lives and families.
Employers here can take a range of actions, from recording something as a first offence (a sort of three strikes and you are out) suspending employees with or without pay, and a variety of things in-between depending on the jurisdiction and any applicable award.
Most workplace law in Australia intends to satisfy both employers and employees using education and retraining to correct employees’ behaviour. Basically, we have a lot more subtle levers to use to sort out any labour disputes than the blunt force of employment termination for any misdemeanor.
@Stephen Schuetz – “it was not the government who decided these things”
That is not a reasonable characterization. The Fair Work Commission is a government body was created by the Fair Work Act of 2009, an effort of the Rudd government. It is part of the portfolio of the Australian Attorney-General. Members are recommended by the Australian government. It has an ~ AU$127 million annual budget.
if what you meant was ‘it is not the current party in power that decided it’ (the “albanese government”) then that’s fair and i never suggested otherwise. the Fair Work Commission is absolutely a government body.
“we have a lot more subtle levers to use to sort out any labour disputes than the blunt force of employment termination for any misdemeanor.”
An airline employee violating drinking rules before a flight is not a ‘misdemeanor’ in the sense of minor infraction.
VIRGIN AIRLINES, false advertising.
I’m with you Gary on never ever wanting to have an employee in California. Once had a flight attendant who got workers comp for spraining her ankle while playing tennis on a layover in San Francisco – because she was at the hotel and “stuck there” for a day due to work without other reasonable leisure activities.
And @Stephen Schuetz: So where does the line get drawn with having a first/second/third offence? Shoot a coworker or two and oh, let’s give them some anger management counseling and a performance improvement plan to not do it again?
All that needs to happen is a kid will die and the Fair Work Commission i will be held accountable for their stupid rulings.
Guess thsts why you’d rather live in a state which doesn’t allow workers to take water breaks.
Never met an Aussie whom I liked, but I like making it less easy for big corps to take people’s livelihood away. Interestingly, never met a Kiwi whom I disliked.
@Gary, you are incorrect. The Commission has statutory independence from the government of the day, and at times has to rule against it. Although it comes under the portfolio of the employment minister – not the Attorney-General – who can appoint commissioners, it functions as a judicial authority. The President of the Commission is a Federal Court judge.
@Ellis Taylor – you are misunderstanding. The commission has independence from political leadership, but is a body of government.
Liberal mantra – Reinforce deviant behavior no matter the cost…
of course being drunk on the job is not a firing offense. It’s Australia!
Gary, maybe stick to travel commentary rather than misleading political commentary. I doubt you would refer to SCOTUS or other American federal courts as “the government” (even though of course they are a branch of government, and appointed by the President). The story was interesting enough without trying to spin it.
@Andy – yes, U.S. Supreme Court action is action by the government, e.g. ‘With Dobbs decision, government reduces protections for abortion rights’