Qantas isn’t making booster shots mandatory for workers, but some states are doing this for them

One of Australia’s biggest employers, Qantas, has told its workers that it is not making it compulsory for them to get a COVID booster shot.

The airline is one of many ASX-listed companies that last year moved to make COVID vaccination compulsory for staff.

It mandated vaccinations for all of its staff in August after conducting a staff survey that it claimed showed only 4 per cent of its 22,000 employees were opposed to getting the jab.

Since then, mandatory COVID vaccination policies have become standard operating procedure for many corporate entities and government sectors in Australia and abroad.

As the Omicron surge continues, state and federal governments are urging people who’ve been double vaccinated for COVID-19 to now get booster shots within three to four months of their last vaccination.

Yet Qantas told staff this week that it won’t be making that booster mandatory.

It told its staff that it is taking this stance because it already had the two-dose vaccination policy and that the situation Australia is in now during Omicron is much different to when Qantas mandated vaccinations in August.

“This is different to the situation in 2021, where the community transmission was much lower and workers crossing borders, both internationally and domestically, were at greater risk of contracting the virus and spreading it to other communities.”

Qantas told its staff it would be reviewing its booster mandate if the situation changed, including if more evidence emerged about COVID booster shots.

It said one area that it would watch is if “a new variant emerges for which a third booster dose of the vaccine provides a significant increase in protection”.

What are other airlines doing on booster mandates?

In a statement, Qantas confirmed to the ABC that it was not mandating a booster shot.

“The COVID-19 situation continues to evolve and we are keeping our vaccination policy under review should circumstances change.

“We’re also making it easier for our employees to get a booster by offering paid time off and providing them additional leave if they’re unfit to work following their jab.”

The airline’s competitor Virgin also confirmed to the ABC that it has not yet mandated the booster.

“Our current vaccination policy does not require booster shots, however, we have encouraged all eligible team members to receive their boosters,” a Virgin spokesperson said.

While Virgin and Qantas so far haven’t mandated the booster, the ABC understands that Rex Airlines is currently considering mandating them for its workforce.

“We have started the consultation process and will publish our revised vaccination policy once we have carefully considered all the feedback,” a REX spokesperson said.

Government moves before private sector on boosters

This month, NSW made booster shots mandatory for all people working in schools.

Victoria this month did the same for workers across healthcare, aged care, disability, emergency services, corrections, hotel quarantine and a range of people who work in food distribution. 

SPC was one of the first Australian major companies to announce a vaccine mandate.

It also confirmed to the ABC that it was not implementing a mandatory booster policy for its workers.

However, frontline SPC factory workers at its factory in regional Victoria are now automatically mandated to get a booster by the state’s policy on food distribution workers anyways.

“We support the Victorian government’s booster shot mandate at SPC,” the company’s chief executive Robert Giles said in a statement.

Both Qantas and Virgin noted that their staff in Western Australia would need to get booster shots as mandated by that state’s policy.

The Western Australian mandate was announced in December and stipulates that all workers in industries who had previously been covered by a mandatory vaccination policy were now required to get a booster too.

Qantas confirmed that WA is so far the only jurisdiction that has brought in a mandate on boosters that impacts its workers.

Will a broader booster mandate be announced?

Gabrielle Golding, an employment law expert at the University of Adelaide, said the decision by Qantas to not yet mandate boosters might come down to “a timing issue”.

“If it’s already viewed as lawful to mandate two vaccines, then I struggle to see how mandating a booster wouldn’t be seen as appropriate,” she says.

“I struggle to see what the real difference is now. If I think outside my employment lawyer role, we all know that a booster can protect against a variant.

The senior lecturer says where things may get complicated for Qantas is where it will have staff covered by mandatory state mandates, such as that in Western Australia, and those that aren’t mandated elsewhere.

“It’s taking the decision out of Qantas hands. In a way, it’s kind of going the way of the employee not needing to make the decision,” she says.

“That’s what we’ve seen in other industries like SPC where it’s mandated via a public health order. It feels like an easier process.”

“Consistency around these things is key.”

When asked about booster shot mandates this week, the Prime Minister said it has been “an item of discussion for some time” whether Australians now needed to have had three doses of a COVID vaccine to be considered fully vaccinated.

“Whether it becomes formally a three-dose program or a two-dose with a booster, I will leave to the medical experts to advise us,” Scott Morrison said.

“I know already that in some states they’re doing mandates on boosters, but that is a matter that states are determining, not the Commonwealth government, and the Commonwealth government has no power to overturn that.”