ABC cameraman Doug Sleeman is facing the sack after going on strike in the middle of a live interview during the corporation's 7pm news bulletin.

Reporter John Stewart was speaking to news anchor Juanita Phillips outside a mosque in Sydney when suddenly the camera tilted back on itself leaving viewers with a view of the pavement.

Stewart was left speechless, managing to get out "Doug! ... he's um ... he's just ..." before the picture flipped back to Phillips, who moved on citing "technical problems."

As it turned out, Stewart's cameraman, Sleeman, wandered off the job as part of a campaign of rolling strikes instituted by the Community and Public Sector Union.

"It was authorised industrial action," the Union's ABC section secretary, Graeme Thomson told the Sydney Morning Herald.

John Cameron, the ABC's director of news and current affairs, said that the corporation was "disappointed," noting that the ABC had "always believed there was a gentleman's, if not a legal, agreement that live programming and crosses would not be affected in that way."

"If the union member wanted to walk off the job, he had no right to take the camera with him," he added.