Pressure on airlines to vaccinate workers and fly

The number of airlines adopting a ‘no jab, no job’ policy is rising, in recognition of the need to rebuild confidence in air travel.

Most airlines have stopped short of mandating the Covid vaccination for employees but are ‘strongly encouraging’ workers to get the jab. Picture: iStock

In an industry where safety is everything, mandatory vaccination of employees against Covid-19 is set to be adopted by many more airlines seeking to rebuild confidence in air travel.

That’s the view of Alliance Aviation managing director Scott McMillan whose company was the first in Australia to adopt a “no jab, no job” policy back in March, which Qantas and Jetstar have now followed.

The Australian carriers are not alone, with Cathay Pacific, United Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines among those to have made the same demands of employees.

Workers at Frontier Airlines have been told they will be subjected to daily Covid tests if they can’t or won’t be vaccinated.

And Canada’s government has taken the decision out of its airlines’ hands, by legislating that anyone boarding planes or trains must be vaccinated, including workers.

Mr McMillan said for Alliance the decision was straightforward, with the airline setting a deadline of November 15 for anyone using their premises to be vaccinated, including staff and contractors.

“We’ve always held the view that this is a matter of ensuring that our staff have a safe workplace,” said Mr McMillan.

“We are obligated by law to provide a safe workplace, and the Fair Work Commission has now indicated that anyone who contracts Covid in the workplace will be entitled to worker’s compensation.”

Legally Australian airlines are within their rights to demand employees get the jab or face dismissal, according to Clyde and Co managing partner Michael Tooma.

He said for industries like aviation, mandatory vaccination of employees was a “lawful and reasonable direction” under the workplace health and safety act.

“Every major player in the industry needs to give some thought as to how best protect the health and safety of their workers and others, and that really needs to include due consideration of mandatory vaccination as a program,” Mr Tooma said.

“What I expect to see is a number of announcements in relation to other airlines that will follow suit.”

Prior to Wednesday’s announcement by Qantas, the airline and others had called on the federal government to mandate the Covid vaccine for aviation workers.

Mr Tooma said there was really no need for that to happen, because it was a “well tested area” of the law.

Two recent cases in relation to a mandatory flu vaccination program in a childcare environment saw the employers’ right to dismiss workers who refused to get the jab upheld by the court.

But University of Adelaide employment law lecturer Gabrielle Golding said those rulings stressed that they should not be considered a precedent to mandatory Covid vaccination in the workplace.

“We’d probably need to see some more (court) cases to see how far this ‘lawful and reasonable’ requirement stretches,” said Dr Golding.

“The Fair Work Ombudsman said the things that need to be taken into account in deciding on mandatory vaccination include the nature of the work being done, the extent of the community transmission in the location of the business, the effectiveness of vaccines and the employees’ circumstances themselves, and whether or not their duties are aligned with potential exposure.”

She said to that extent it was hard to see that the circumstances of an engineer or office worker at an airline, carried the same level of risk as a cabin crew member.

“You can see how that lawful and reasonable direction might change,” Dr Golding said.