On Wednesday, union groups representing workers at BlueScope, the coal terminal, seafarers and the coalfields pledged to fight their separate battles together.

Friday morning marked the first time that declaration was put into action.

“It is the first shot in solidarity action, real action on the ground,” South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris said.

“We kick off today publicly so these multinationals understand that these are not empty words, that these are concrete actions. 

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“Those things will continue to escalate until we get a satisfactory resolution and some sanity back into the industrial heartland of this country.”

The picket was made up of striking terminal workers, steelworkers from BlueScope on rolling stoppages or off shift, coalminers about to start their own campaign, protesting seafarers and members of the public.​

There has already been a picket line outside the Port Kembla Coal Terminal since workers were locked out last week and then decided to go on strike this week.

Mr Rorris said adding numbers to the picket line would send the message that they were not on their own.

“They have workers in the industries of Port Kembla and the Illawarra who are fighting similar battles and saying to them, and to their bosses, that these battles will be fought as a united front.

“There is one struggle in this community now, not four or five or six.”

Mr Rorris said the boost to the picket line was just the first in a planned series of actions.

“This is the first step – next week we will escalate further again and obviously we will advise closer to the time the circumstances of that escalation,” he said.

“There will not be a pattern.The bosses will have to open up the Illawarra Mercury to find out where the next one is happening.”

The escalation of industrial action wasn’t the workers’ preferred approach, Mr Rorris claimed, but they had been left with no choice.

“These workers have been trying to negotiate a fair deal with their employers for months and months now,” he said.

“Their employers’ intransigence has driven these workers to this point.”

Meantime a Port Kembla Coal Terminal spokesperson told the Mercury: “PKCT understands there were a small gathering of union leaders from organisations that have nothing to do with our employees.

“We, alone, are acting in the best interest of our employees and their families.

“We appreciate the unions may have other agendas but we remain committed to offering our permanent workforce significantly above award wages and conditions.

“We continue to negotiate, in good faith a new Enterprise Agreement.”