Trident Services Security Pty Ltd and United Workers Union Newcastle Airport Agreement 2025

[1] This decision concerns an application for approval of the Trident Services Security Pty Ltd and United Workers Union Newcastle Airport Agreement 2025 (the Agreement). The application has been made under section 185 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (the FW Act), by Trident Services Security Pty Ltd (the Applicant). The Agreement is a single enterprise agreement.

[2] The Fair Work Commission must approve the Agreement if the requirements in sections 186 and 187 of the FW Act are met.

[3] If the agreement is not a greenfields agreement, section 186(2)(a) of the FW Act requires the Fair Work Commission to be satisfied that the agreement has been genuinely agreed to by the employees covered by the agreement. The Agreement is not a greenfields agreement. The question of whether an enterprise agreement has been genuinely agreed to by the employees is determined by reference to section 188 of the FW Act. Section 188(4)(a) of the FW Act provides that the Fair Work Commission cannot be satisfied as to genuine agreement unless the Fair Work Commission is satisfied that sections 173 and 174 of the FW Act have been complied with. The Notice of Employee Representational Rights (NERR) that was filed with the application identified the agreement as the Trident Services Security Pty Ltd and United Workers Union Newcastle Aviation Security Enterprise Agreement 2025. I am satisfied that the NERR contains a minor error with respect to the name of the agreement, which can be disregarded in accordance with section 188(5) of the FW Act. In particular, I am satisfied that the employees were not likely to have been disadvantaged by that error.

[4] Section 186(2)(c) of the FW Act requires the Fair Work Commission to be satisfied that the terms of the Agreement do not contravene section 55 of the FW Act. In considering the application, I raised a concern with the Applicant and the United Workers Union (UWU), which was a bargaining representative for the Agreement. The concern related to clause 34.3(c)(ii), which concerns the payment of annual leave on cessation of employment. The concern being that clause may be inconsistent with section 90(2) of the FW Act. I sought the views of the Applicant and the UWU as to whether the Applicant wished to rely upon clause 6.1 of the Agreement, which may be best described as a NES precedence clause, to address any such inconsistency. The Applicant confirmed that it did. The UWU did not express a view. Such confirmation by the Applicant resolves these concerns.

[5] Based on the material provided, each of the requirements of the FW Act that are relevant to this Agreement are satisfied.

[6] Section 201 of the FW Act requires the approval decision to note certain matters. The only such matter is that the United Workers Union has given the Fair Work Commission a notice under section 183(1) of the FW Act that it wants the Agreement to cover it. In accordance with section 201(2) of the FW Act, I note that the Agreement covers the United Workers Union.

[7] The Agreement is approved and, in accordance with section 54 of the FW Act, it will operate from 26 December 2025. The nominal expiry date of the Agreement is 30 June 2029.

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