Australian tugboat engineers kicked off another two-day strike at select ports today, part of an ongoing dispute with towage company Svitzer that saw huge disruptions to ports across the island last week.
The latest industrial action will end at midnight on Tuesday.
Ports in Sydney, Botany, Fremantle and Kwinana are affected today with the organisers of the protest warning another four ports could be hit tomorrow.
The industrial action comes after unsuccessful negotiations for a new enterprise agreement, with engineers rejecting attempts by Svitzer to bring them under the same agreement as deckhands and tugboat skippers.
“For an island nation like Australia, which relies on the maritime industry to move 99 per cent of its industrial trade, the stoppages will damage the Australian economy and put jobs at risk,” Svitzer said in a release last week.
