We are nine former airline employees—one pilot and a mix of cabin crew, ground crew, and baggage handlers—who were terminated for not complying with a company vaccine mandate in 2021. We started as self-represented litigants through the Fair Work Commission, and now we’ve engaged AFL lawyers to pursue our case in court.

Our case centers on two key legal points:

Breach of contract

Unlawful direction

There’s already a legal precedent on unlawful direction, and none of our employment contracts or EBAs had any mandate for such a directive. While Australian airlines lobbied the federal government for a mandate, the government refused, exposing the airlines to litigation like ours.

We have already been successful against multiple strikeout / throw out  applications from the other side, which is now on the public record. 

Big corporations often aim to bankrupt plaintiffs through expensive legal battles, and that’s exactly what the airline’s legal team is trying to do to us. Despite three unnecessary hearings, the judge has urged them to stop wasting resources. We’re now in the discovery phase, where we’ll seek proof of their claims before moving to trial.

So far, we’ve funded everything ourselves, but now we need your help to get us to trial and set a legal precedent that could help victims of illegal medical mandates across all industries. 

We’re asking for $500k to see us through to the end of this fight.

This case could change the landscape of industrial litigation. We know people are fatigued by donation requests, but the impact of this case will benefit workers everywhere. Even a small contribution—say, the price of a coffee—will help. If enough people pitch in, we’ll reach our $500k goal.

Please join us in this historic fight—together, we can take on corporate Australia.