Engineers at Newcastle, Botany Bay and Geelong ports walked off the job for 12 hours at 4am on Tuesday after Svitzer, a tug and salvage company, tried to bring them under the same enterprise agreement as deckhands and tugboat skippers.However, Martin Byrne, federal secretary of the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers, said Port Kembla was not taking part in either this strike or any planned strikes later in the week.

Mr Byrne said this was because BlueScope was one of the major users of Port Kembla.

‘‘Everyone is aware of the precarious situation the steelworks is in so we have not taken any protected action in Port Kembla, or Whyalla where the other steel mill  that is also under pressure is,’’ Mr Byrne said.