Shocking new details emerge about drunk FIFO worker sacked from her job for disturbing antics with men in a Qantas lounge and on a plane – and the sad backstory behind it

Shocking new details have been revealed about a FIFO employee’s shame after she was sacked for drunkenly sexually harassing two male colleagues in a Qantas lounge and later on board a plane.

Evelyn Josey lost her $130,000-a-year mining job after loading up on free alcohol at Brisbane Airport’s Qantas lounge on July 18 last year on her way to BHP’s Duania mine site, west of Mackay on the Coral Sea coast of Queensland.

Ms Josey had recently split up with her partner and was heavily drunk when she started rubbing her bottom against a colleague she barely knew, according to a Fair Work Commission decision.

Ms Josey – who had worked for BHP’s in-house employment agency OS MCAP – was asked by her colleague: ‘What are you doing?’ She replied ‘just good to see you’, the tribunal heard.

While sitting together at a table moments later, the witness later claimed to workplace investigators that the brunette had then tried to grab his genitals – although the accusation could not be substantiated.

Ms Josey was still allowed to board her flight to Moranbah Airport, near Duania, and sat next to another colleague.

Ms Josey then tried to hold his hands and snuggle up to him, before placing her head near his lap.

The awkward dad-of-two pretended to be asleep in the hope she would leave him alone.

Ms Josey was dismissed just before Christmas last year for serious misconduct. She took the matter to the Commission, but her claim for unfair dismissal was rejected earlier this month.

She has since gone into hiding, locked her social media accounts and changed her name.

Ms Josey admitted to the tribunal that she does not remember much of what happened that day, but said she faced racism, misogyny and sexual harassment.

She had demanded compensation of six months’ salary and reinstated her old job.

However, Commissioner Sharon Durham did not find her dismissal to be harsh or unreasonable and Josey had sexually harassed her colleagues.

Some of her colleagues described Ms Josey’s behavior as ‘out of character and quite erratic’ as she ordered two bourbon and cokes at the bar in the Qantas lounge.

“I was just having a bit of a harder time that day and I didn’t really feel like going to work, and I started drinking very early,” she told the tribunal.

She admitted she turned to alcohol in December 2021 when her relationship with her partner of 26 years broke down.

She said she had developed a drinking problem and also had mental health problems.

After the drunken encounters with her colleagues, Ms Josey told her shift leader that she was unfit to work the next day and was instead taking five weeks off.

Commissioner Durham admitted that she has sobered up since the incidents.

Ms Josey also claimed she apologized to the colleague she slept on during the flight and asked him to forgive her.

However, both men said they were concerned about Ms Josey’s behaviour, with one nervous about flying with her again, and the other worried she knew where he lived because she had dropped him off at home once.

She claimed she had a drink in the Qantas lounge and when she went to put the glass on the table she missed it and spilled the ice on the floor.

She claimed that her colleagues then laughed at her and she moved to another table.

Ms Josey also claimed that if the incident had happened as alleged, it was after hours with a friend.

The FIFO officer insisted the incident on the plane occurred while she was sleeping “and as such would not have had the opportunity to make conscious decisions that would constitute sexual harassment,” the FWC heard.

Her male colleague said he pretended to be asleep and “played dead,” but the unwanted touching continued throughout the 90-minute flight.

He said he was concerned Ms Josey might have caused a scene if he had asked her to stop as she appeared drunk and erratic.

“As the flight attendants walked by, he looked at them as if to say, ‘I don’t want to be here,’” the commission heard.

Commissioner Durham said that while Ms Josey’s level of intoxication may have had an impact, this “does not and cannot excuse” her behavior.

The commissioner commended Ms. Josey for her efforts to sober up after the incident.

But he also took into account that her memory of the day’s events was “clouded by her extreme intoxication.”

Her request for unfair dismissal was rejected.