Former Newcastle tug crew blame Svitzer for the enterprise bargaining standoff that has brought Australia's ports to the brink

Len Covell, George Sewell, Chris Visscher and Doug Terry are all happily retired from the waterfront.

As members of the tightknit waterfront brotherhood - and as former long-time delegates for their respective unions - they are taking a keen interest in a dispute capturing national attention, thanks to Svtizer's determination to indefinitely lock out some 580 employees in 17 ports in five states, as an enterprise bargaining tactic.

"We had our blues," Mr Terry, an engineer and member of the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers (AIMPE) said yesterday.

"But we were able to settle them almost always by negotiation. It wasn't like this."

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Mr Visscher, a former tug captain and member of the Australian Maritime Officers Union (AMOU), explained that the differences between ports meant that a single enterprise agreement couldn't work effectively without individual "port agreements" to spell out the day-to-day arrangements in each workplace.

Like his Maritime Union of Australia mates in Mr Covell and Mr Sewell, he said one of the big difficulties in his time with Svitzer was that "everything had to go back to head office in Copenhagen".

"When you could work with the local management it was alright, but they have a very different way of doing things over there," Mr Visscher said.

The four of them retired between 2012 and 2015 and say it seems to them that Svitzer had some sort of "philosophical change" in its attitude to workplace negotiations just before COVID hit.

They also remember the years before Svitzer built what the unions describe as a near monopoly on the Australian tug industry, when Adelaide Steamship and BHP ran tugs in Newcastle.

Back then, each tug carried a noticeably bigger crew than they do now.

They remembered a time before "the big (company) win" when they carried a captain, an engineer, three deckhands and a fireman.

Now it's one captain, one engineer, one deckhand.

Technology has helped with that.

Winches now wind in ropes that were once pulled in by deckhand muscle.

But they also say the lower manning has helped Svitzer gain a lot of productivity efficiencies that are conveniently ignored when the company says it needs to drive down costs.

And it's not all flat water stuff.

The swell was big enough to close Newcastle yesterday.

Otherwise, its a 24/7 service, 365 days of the year, with rescue jobs in heaving seas if needed.

They loved their work, but Svitzer is not on their Christmas card list.

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