Air and sea travellers can expect delays and disruptions on Wednesday, after union members within customs and the immigration department announced their intention to strike over an industrial dispute.
The strike will last for two hours and is due to start at 9am on 1 July, and coincides with the introduction of the government’s new border force agency, which starts on the same day.
Passengers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Gold Coast, Adelaide, Cairns and Darwin airports will be affected, as well as users of major seaports.
“Our members take their work very seriously,” national secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), Nadine Flood, said. “This action will not apply to members engaged in safety of life at sea or on land situations, or on work that could impact on counter-terrorism and national security.”
Flood said some workers could lose between $5,000 and $8,000 a year under the government’s pay offer, which would see the end of several allowances, including those for the use of firearms and working long and unusual hours.
“We have border protection workers desperately worried about how they’ll pay their bills and that is appalling,” Flood said. “These men and women literally put their lives on the line to keep Australia safe.
“They have tough and sometimes dangerous jobs which deserve our thanks and respect, yet the Abbott government is pushing a policy that will dramatically cut their take home pay,” Flood said.
A spokeswoman for the employment minister, Eric Abetz, said the union must be more realistic in its pay and conditions negotiations.
“It would be a counterproductive exercise for the CPSU to organise industrial action in support of its claim for a 12% pay rise which is utterly unrealistic and would cost the jobs of 10,000 public servants,” the spokeswoman said. “We are in a very low inflationary environment and I’d encourage the CPSU to take a more responsible stance.”
The union said a pay rise was not the main consideration.
“The government is desperate to pretend this dispute is all about bigger pay rises, but the reality is public sector workers are outraged at the attack on their rights, conditions and job security, with thousands facing even worse with cuts to their current pay,” said.
But the spokeswoman said the federal government was leading by example when it came to pay rises.
“The public service and the Australian people understand the difficult financial circumstances that we face as a nation and therefore the offers that are on the table are reasonable in all the circumstances. Leadership has been shown by the government rejecting any pay increase for ministers and secretaries,” she said.
An unprecedented number of public service departments, including Centrelink, the Tax Office, Medicare, the departments of defence, human services and agriculture, and bureaux of meteorology and statistics, have voted to take industrial action as a result of failed pay negotiations.
Wednesday 1 July also marks the start of the federal government’s new amalgamated agency, the Australian Border Force, which will combine customs and border control operations.
The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, will swear in the agency’s inaugural commissioner, Roman Quaedvlieg, at Parliament House in Canberra.
