Border Force staff banned from striking at airports for three months

Border Force staff have been banned from striking after judgment that the union-led action posed a threat to security.

Australian Border Force Officers working at Sydney International Airport. Picture: Britta Campion

Border Force staff have been banned from striking at airports for three months after the industrial umpire found it “more than likely” that weaknesses in the system had been “exploited” by criminals or terrorists as result of the union-led action.

In a judgment that firmly rejected union claims that Border Force strikes posed no threat to national security, the Fair Work Commission found that industrial action at airports had been designed “deliberately” to reduce Border Force’s “mitigation capacity”.

The Commission imposed the 90-day suspension on the Commonwealth Public Sector Union’s plans for further rolling strikes at airports in all capital cities, owing to the raised possibility of “criminal or terrorist behaviours”.

“Systemic weaknesses can be more easily identified and exploited” by would-be terrorists, said Commissioner Nicholas Wilson.

“The evidence shows this risk is not merely foreseeable, but that such behaviour more than likely occurred within the recent period of protected industrial action.”

“The evidence compellingly illustrates a highly sophisticated plan for industrial action,” Commissioner Wilson added: without question, the evidence shows the protected industrial action to have had a suffocating effect.”

“A singular or short burst of protected industrial action ... increase(s) the risk that the ABF may miss something to which further attention should be given. The longer the duration of the periods of protected industrial action the more that risk is aggravated.”

“It becomes foreseeable that criminal or terrorist opportunistic behaviours become more likely as a result, since systemic weaknesses can be more easily identified and exploited,” Commissioner Wilson said.

During the CPSU strikes staff were withdrawn at many locations, “for many hours of the day”, the Commission heard.

“The intention of the action was to wear down the capacity of the ABF to avoid the action through deployment of surge staff.”

Consequently, “the capacity of the ABF to undertake its core functions was seriously affected,”

Commissioner Wilson said.

During the hearings, the CPSU refuted Border Force’s claims that the strikes raised the potential threat to national security.

However, while Commissioner Wilson noted the CPSU’s claim “that an ongoing suspension will disadvantage its members in the exercise of their bargaining power,” he concluded that “the widespread nature of the notified protected industrial action, coupled with heightened employee participation and a deteriorating capacity of the ABF to mitigate its effects aggravates the risks faced by the ABF in performing its functions.”

“The CPSU has not backed away from the industrial action it designed and implemented.

“Each of the CPSU witnesses believed the industrial action designed and delivered could be worked around by the ABF and that it did not endanger the population.”

The order applies for 90 days from April 3, when the Commission made an interim order to suspend the strikes following urgent hearings in Melbourne.