Steward Wins Dismissal Case

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday July 27, 2007

Ben Cubby

BEING caught red-handed with a selection of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts in your pocket is a sacking offence at Qantas.

But some common sense prevailed at the Australian Industrial Relations Commission this week when a flight attendant with 32 years' unblemished service was reinstated.

Cabin supervisor Philip Woodward-Brown, 57, had been stood down halfway through an eight-day international trip when a routine security check near Tokyo last August unearthed the illicit confectionary. In line with its "zero tolerance" policy, the airline immediately stood him down, and sacked him in November.

Mr Woodward-Brown said he had kept the items inadvertently. But a former cabin crew team manager, Alison Bell, was quoted during the hearing as saying: "I found it hard to believe that Mr Woodward-Brown would not be able to notice five chocolates in his trouser pockets given the comparative size of the chocolates and his trouser pockets."

The commission's senior deputy president, Lea Drake, said the breaches could have been dealt with in ways other than dismissal, and ordered the airline to give Mr Woodward-Brown his job back by August 23, but withheld compensation for lost pay because of the breaches of policy.

Mr Woodward-Brown is the third Qantas employee in 18 months who has been sacked for breaches of policy and then reinstated following a commission hearing.

"We are considering our options," a Qantas spokeswoman told the Herald after the commission's decision.