A lockout of tugboat crews is threatening major disruptions at ports across the country, potentially causing supply-chain chaos in the lead-up to Christmas.
Tugboat operator Svitzer says it will lock out more than 580 workers indefinitely on Friday, from 17 ports in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.
Svitzer has been working to finalise a new enterprise agreement for workers over the past three years, but has moved to the lockout after almost 2000 hours of industrial action by unions in the past month.
