Australia’s powerful construction and maritime union has been fined $125,000 after three officials showed “arrogant disregard of the law” by attending a picket line blockading a major container terminal and stranding millions of dollars of cargo.

During a hostile workplace dispute at the Port of Melbourne last year stevedoring company Victorian International Container Terminal (VICT) was hit with an around-the-clock blockade preventing trucks from reaching more than 1000 shipping containers carrying retail goods, fresh produce and medicine for two weeks in the lead-up to Christmas.

The docks were the subject of a protests and a picket. Credit:AAP

Victoria’s Supreme Court had twice ordered the maritime union not to go within 100 metres of the terminal access gates and to lift the illegal picket line. But the blockade remained in force and was referred to as a “community protest” by supporters in the wider trade union movement.

The union admitted its officials had been in breach of the injunction when they addressed the picketers on the afternoon of December 14.