Originally Posted by
dr dre
If you look at all the others professions who work public holidays, police, nurses, hospital staff, emergency services, mining, retail, aged care etc there are a lot of people needed on public holidays who would also like to get the day off. I can’t imagine there’s too many workers in other industries willing to volunteer to give up every holiday to help out their boss.
At risk of society shutting down the government will have to step in and ensure that employers have the right to force employees in those industries to work, but as
quoted in this AFR article:
An employer could still require the employee to work on a public holiday if the employee’s refusal was unreasonable given the nature of the work, reasonable employer expectations, the type of employment and the level of pay.
All an employer has to do is say “you agreed to work in aviation therefore it’s expected you work holidays” and your right to opt out is over. However they may be forced to institute a mandatory penalty payment for working on a holiday.
I don’t think this ruling will ensure pilots and airline employees a guaranteed Christmas off every year. But you may get a bit more money in the bank account for working on the day.
interesting, though, that the test case involved miners, who work in a famously 24/7 365 industry and it’s not like anyone could reasonably claim they are underpaid. Closing down medical and emergency services would lead to anarchy pretty abruptly, but you can close air travel down for 18 months or more and society will keep trudging along, so calling it essential is a bit of a stretch. They might find themselves in a situation where they have to demonstrate that their service is more essential than mining- no mean feat in Australia.