Jetstar maintenance worker now loses Fair Work sacking appeal
MELBOURNE: A Jetstar maintenance worker has failed in his bid to win back his job after targeting an apprentice and allegedly making a series of “bizarre” taunts, including calling him a “pu**y” and asking “were you hit much as a kid?”.
Jarrod (Jack) Mcrae, a Melbourne-based engineer with the airline giant, was sacked in July last year, but appealed the decision to the Fair Work Commission, claiming the dismissal was harsh and the allegedly vicious remarks had been taken out of context.
Jetstar, in its evidence to FWC Deputy President Richard Clancy, said the verbal abuse happened in February, alleging Mr Mcrae said to the apprentice: “you are all pu**ies now, it’s ridiculous, back when I was an apprentice, we used to cop all sorts of abuse”.
Further, Jetstar claimed the engineer asked the apprentice, “were you hit much as a kid?” and in another instance, threatened him with a fight, saying “oi, take it to the carpark, be a man.”
Mr Mcrae, in his defence, denied making the remarks or claimed they had been taken out of context, saying the “pu**ies” taunt related to a general story about “the old days” and not directed solely at the apprentice.
Deputy President Clancy did not rule definitively that the comments were made, but said Mr Mcrae had “failed to read the room and notice that (the apprentice) neither welcomed nor cared for his commentary”.
“As for the comments ‘were you hit much as a kid’ and ‘oi, take it to the carpark, be a man’, Mr Mcrae’s response was, again, a combination of a denial and an assertion that he made comments that have been taken out of context,” Deputy President Clancy said.
“If the applicant made the alleged comments, I consider them bizarre, inane and not at all amusing.”
The taunts were not enough to warrant a sacking, Deputy President Clancy found, but the case also revealed that Mr Mcrae had put the safety of fellow workers at risk by pressing an emergency stop button and leaving two workers, including the apprentice, stranded on an elevated work platform.
The action was unauthorised and the two workers on the platform were unable to get down on their own.
Mr Mcrae also laughed at the workers, the FWC found.
Deputy President Clancy slammed Mr Mcrae’s behaviour, saying it had put the workers in an “invidious position”, and that action alone warranted dismissal.
“Mr Mcrae acted in breach of the Cardinal Rules by recklessly engaging in ‘horseplay, skylarking or practical jokes’ in pressing the emergency stop button on the elevated work platform on the day in question,” he said.
“(I am) satisfied that this act constitutes a valid reason for his dismissal.
“By his action, Mr Mcrae, an experienced aircraft maintenance engineer, left two apprentices in an EWP approximately 5-6 meters above ground … he left the two apprentices in an invidious position. They did not possess his years of experience and it should not be assumed that they were relaxed about being left at height with no means of reactivating the EWP in order to lower it.”
Deputy President Clancy also said the hangar workplace was a “safety-critical” environment with numerous hazards, including working at heights and moving aircraft and exposure to hazardous materials, and Mr Mcrae’s actions had the potential to cause serious harm to the two apprentices.
The deputy president found Mr Mcrae had intentionally “injected himself into (the apprentice’s) orbit”.
“My overwhelming impression is that for reasons best known to himself, Mr Mcrae felt an impulse to repeatedly inject himself into (the apprentice’s) orbit and when doing so, came across as overbearing and antagonistic,” he said.
“Mr Mcrae seems to have held the firm view that as the more senior employee it was his prerogative and right to ride (the apprentice) hard.”
Jetstar is a subsidiary of Qantas, offering travellers budget flights domestically and internationally.
