Unvaccinated Jetstar ex-worker loses legal battle with airline

A former Jetstar employee has lost her legal battle with the airline after she was fired for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

A former Jetstar employee has lost an ugly legal battle against the airline after she claimed she was unjustly fired after failing to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

Annunziata ‘Tina’ Cinque had worked at Jetstar for more than 10 years when she was dismissed in April 2022 for being unvaccinated and failing to provide a medical exemption in order to comply with the company’s vaccine mandates.

In her unfair dismissal claim to the Fair Work Commission, Ms Cinque contended her firing was “harsh, unjust, and unreasonable” – claims which Jetstar denied.

Following an August 10 hearing, Fair Work Commissioner Bernadette O’Neill said she was “satisfied that there was a valid reason for her dismissal and that there were no procedural defects in the dismissal process”.

She noted there were no other matters that pointed to a finding of unfairness in Ms Cinque’s termination, which is why the decision was made to dismiss her application.

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Annunziata Cinque lost her unfair dismissal bid against Jetstar. Tina Cinque/LinkedIn

At the time of her dismissal, Ms Cinque had been employed by Jetstar since 2010 and had held roles such as domestic terminal team leader and senior knowledge and training specialist.

In September 2021, the airline introduced its Covid-19 vaccination policy, revealing all Jetstar employees would need to be vaccinated against the virus.

Ms Cinque was originally required to provide proof of vaccination by November 15, 2021, but that was later pushed to March 31, 2022.

In the lead up to her termination, the Jetstar worker raised a number of concerns about the policy and sought a temporary exemption.

When she was eventually fired for failing to become vaccinated, she submitted an internal appeal against the decision.

Ms Cinque argued that she did not disobey the direction to get vaccinated and had in fact scheduled an appointment for March 18, 2022, at a pharmacy in Reservoir, Melbourne.

She claimed the pharmacist refused to vaccinate her after she said she was at the appointment “involuntarily, under pressure, coercion, manipulation, and threat of termination of my employment”.

During the hearing, Ms Cinque said when she arrived at the pharmacy she was taken into a private room by a pharmacist.

She then signed a consent form confirming she had received and understood information provided to her about Covid-19 vaccination and that she agreed to receive a course of the vaccine.

The employee claimed her termination was ‘harsh, unjust, and unreasonable’.

The former Jetstar employee then told the pharmacist that she was at the appointment after receiving a “Draconian threat of sacking by my employer if I was not injected”.

“I also advised the Injecting Practitioner that the Federal Health Department Immunisation Guidelines Criterion 2, ‘PROHIBITS’ any injecting by any Injecting Practitioner, of any persons attending for Injections under any Undue Pressure, Coercion or Manipulation to be injected,” she said at the hearing.

“And that the sacking threat made against me constitutes Undue Pressure, Coercion or Manipulation to be Injected or be sacked …”

As a result, the pharmacist said she was not prepared to administer the vaccination in light of Ms Cinque’s statement.

The ex-employee then asked the pharmacist to sign a document stating she understands she would be “committing a Criminal Act of Assault and Battery” if she did administer the vaccination and that she would be liable and would be criminally charged as a result.

After the pharmacist said she was not prepared to sign the document, Ms Cinque completed the document herself, noting the pharmacist’s refusal to sign.

Ms Cinque’s employment was terminated on April 18, 2022 for failing to comply with the company’s vaccination policy.

Jetstar’s Head of Customer, James Madden, gave evidence at the hearing that prior to dismissing the employee, he considered and rejected the possibility that she could continue to work from home instead of being vaccinated.

“Mr Madden considered that she had had sufficient time to be vaccinated and did not realistically think that she would ever do so,” findings from the Fair Work Commission stated.

During the hearing, the Counsel for the respondent put to Ms Cinque that, given the steps she had taken during the vaccine appointment, she had been “intent on getting a formal record of not being vaccinated”.

It was also put to her that she had “acted out a conscious and deliberate plan” developed with her representative, Glenn Floyd.

“That plan was to book an appointment, attend, ostensibly consent to being vaccinated, but by providing the template and telling the pharmacist that any injection would be involuntary and the pharmacist exposed to legal action, knew that the inevitable result was that the pharmacist would not administer the vaccination,” the findings from the hearing stated.

In handing down her decision, Commissioner O’Neill pointed to the fact that Ms Cinque chose to take the template document to her with the pharmacy and to tell the pharmacist that she was unwilling to receive the vaccine voluntarily.

“The template document, which includes that the pharmacist had been advised that ‘the injections are not voluntary’, makes it crystal clear that Ms Cinque was not, in fact, consenting to be vaccinated, irrespective of having earlier signed a consent form,” she said.

Commissioner O’Neill found the direction from Jetstar was “lawful and reasonable” and did not constitute unlawful coercion.

The commissioner found there were valid reasons for Ms Cinque’s dismissal and her terminated was neither “harsh, unjust nor unreasonable”.

A Jetstar spokesperson told news.com.au the airline stands by its vaccination policy and the way it was developed and introduced.

“Safety is core to Qantas and Jetstar’s operations and was a key consideration for our decision on vaccinations for employees,” the spokesperson said.

“While the Qantas Group was the first ASX-listed company to introduce such a policy, since then all domestic airlines in Australia and many overseas have introduced similar requirements for their workforce.”

Originally published as Unvaccinated Jetstar ex-worker loses legal battle with airline