Background check costs many airport employees their jobs

Strict controls are important in air traffic. However, these must be done with reason and a sense of proportion, as Thomas Faulhuber, deputy chairman of the Board of Trustees, said. Chairman of the vida Aviation Department and Chairman of the  Vienna Airport Workers' Works Council. "Insignificant offences must not lead to urgently needed employees at airports losing their jobs and livelihoods as a result. Due to a blocking of their IDs, they no longer have access to their workplace until the allegations have been clarified," said the trade unionist. Recently, the reliability test has been issued more and more negatively - and this even for very small missteps. At Flughafen Wien AG alone, this affects well over a hundred employees per year. "We would like to see this review carried out more individually on the basis of the overall assessment of the respective case and in addition, as is customary in Germany, a 'minimum trigger threshold' be defined in the law," Faulhuber continued.

"Those affected have lost their jobs and livelihoods because they no longer had access to the workplace."

Thomas Faulhuber, Deputy Head of the Department of Business Administration at the University of Applied Sciences. Chairman of the vida Aviation Department and Chairman of the Workers' Works Council at  Vienna Airport

Accidental forklift accident as the reason

The chairman of the works council describes two cases of those affected: For example, an employee unintentionally hit a colleague with the forklift while working. However, the hospital must file a complaint in such cases. The matter was settled by a diversion. Another employee, on the other hand, had bought goods on the Internet from private to private, but had not paid the invoice in time. The result was a fraud complaint by the seller. "What all those affected have in common is that their security pass for the airport was blocked because of this and they lost their job and livelihood because they no longer had access to the workplace. Apart from the human side, something like this is also a catastrophe in times of staff shortages," Faulhuber pleads for a more differentiated approach by the authorities. "Every employee in aviation knows about the great importance of safe flight operations. They subordinate their decisions and activities to this," says Daniel Liebhart, chairman of the vida aviation department, on the subject. The basis for this is that people work in aviation who are trustworthy and reliable. And that's what the background check is for.

Evaluate background checks

The necessary expertise to assess this lies with the responsible authorities and this should not be questioned. "However, since such a decision can lead to the loss of one's job and livelihood, it must be ensured that such decisions are only made after a close examination of each individual case and must follow criteria that are as clear as possible," says Liebhart. Faulhuber and Liebhart conclude: "In Austria, we would like to see an evaluation of the current practice in background checks and propose a comparison with the regulations in the German Aviation Security Act (LuftSiGi) § 7. It would also make sense to increase the necessary resources in the authorities in order to ensure a detailed review of individual cases."