If you were already doubtful that Covid vaccination mandates were really about ‘keeping everyone safe’, then Qantas just vindicated your concerns.

The multi-billion dollar airline recently won the support of Australia’s Fair Work Commission in a case that revealed the sheer absurdity of their Covid vaccination policy. The Commission held that Qantas’ decision to sack employee Megan Willoughby – who was on long service leave and received the vaccination past the stipulated deadline (but before returning to work) – was lawful.

While Qantas claims their decision centred on workplace safety, their submissions to the Commission reveal things were not so clear-cut. By grossly attempting to control the private, medical lives of employees – when those lives have no connection to the workplace itself – Qantas unashamedly takes corporate dictatorship to a whole new level, threatening Australians with an unprecedented loss of control over their medical decisions.

In upholding Qantas’ decision to sack Ms Willoughby, the Commission’s reasoning was simple. The Qantas Group Covid Vaccination Policy stipulated that all Category A employees be vaccinated by November 15, 2021. The only exceptions to this deadline were for those who were stood down, on special leave without pay, leave without pay, or parental leave at the time of the deadline, in which case they were required to be vaccinated by their first day back at work. As a Category A employee on long service leave at the time of the mandate, Ms Willoughby did not fall within these exceptions. By delaying her vaccination until just before she returned to work in May 2022, she violated Qantas’ vaccination policy, a policy the Commission deemed ‘lawful and reasonable’. The Commission therefore upheld Qantas’ decision to terminate her employment one month later.

Yet, Qantas’ own submissions to the Commission – which the Commission accepted at face value – demonstrate just how unreasonable their policy was. They claim they grouped employees with exceptions to the 15 November deadline into cohorts with uniform return-to-work dates and vaccination deadlines. Qantas argued that accommodating other exceptions (like Ms Willoughby’s long service leave) would ‘lead to a myriad of compliance dates’, cause ‘inconsistency in the application of the policy’, and be ‘operationally unworkable’. In other words, a multi-billion-dollar company’s human resources department, which routinely monitors individual hiring, training, and compliance dates for over 20,000 employees, is unwilling to check whether one employee uploaded their vaccine certificate. It is one thing to force those who work in close contact with others to be vaccinated (though even that is problematic, since the vaccine does not stop transmission), but it is an entirely different matter to make the same demand of those completely absent from the workplace.

This is a point that Qantas overlooked entirely. In their submissions to the Fair Work Commission, they claimed that Ms Willoughby’s breach of their policy was a ‘serious matter, made more serious by her ongoing failure to be vaccinated until 10 May 2022’, citing a Public Health Order that mandated vaccination at ‘high risk’ workplaces like airports. Yet she was never in an airport or her workplace. Qantas used an employee’s private, medical decisions – made when she was not working and which had no impact on the workplace – as a basis for sacking.

Qantas’ real concern appears to be that someone stared down their apparent attempt to act as a corporate dictator. Ms Willoughby ultimately received the required vaccinations before her return to work, yet because she did so beyond an illogically inflexible deadline, she was punished. For all the hype of ‘work-life balance’, Qantas are intent on having their tentacles in the ‘life’ element – something that is clear in their submissions. For example, Qantas revealed that Ms Willoughby stated she had contracted Covid on February 1, and in response, they ‘questioned as to why the applicant proffered no explanation at all for not being fully vaccinated in the period between 11 November 2021 and 1 February 2022’ (during her long service leave). It seems Qantas didn’t realise the answer was – quite literally – ‘none of their business’. It is my belief that Qantas has exploited the power grab permitted by the pandemic to control the lives of their employees in true dictatorial and unjustifiable fashion.

Among the ridiculous actions seen under the guise of ‘public health and safety’, Qantas’ policy takes the cake. With the backing of the Fair Work Commission, Qantas, and other big corporations, have no reason to question just what they can demand of employees beyond the workplace. The only silver lining is that maybe we won’t need to hear ‘Keeping us safe!’ before having our autonomy usurped.

Edmund Stephen is a Contributor for Young Voices.