AROUND 1700 Essential Energy workers across regional NSW temporarily put down the tools this week as part of a state-wide industrial action and plan to do so again next week for a longer period if the company refuses to negotiate.

The temporary stop work, took place on Wednesday 17 November from 9am so members of the Electrical Trade Union (ETU) could meet to launch the union's campaign calling for job security and a fair pay rise.

Secretary of the ETU's NSW & ACT Branch Allen Hicks said the meeting was held over Zoom, and saw a lot of employees participate.

"I think we had around 800 attendees but with people working in crews, it would be reasonable to say well over 1000 people attended," Mr Hicks said.

"We want to try and maximise the pressure on the company to make the right decision on behalf of its employees - we can sit around table as long as possible, but if other end isn't moving, we have to take action.

"We don't take what we're doing lightly - we're not doing it for the sake of it, but are committed to fighting for our members and their families."

According to Mr Hicks, the main resolution at the meeting was the decision to have another period of industrial action in the second half of next week, this one lasting a total of eight hours.

The industrial action follows an offer from Essential Energy put to the combined unions for a new Enterprise Agreement in September.

According to a company spokesperson, Essential Energy’s offer included a 7.5 per cent increase to wages and allowances over the three-year life of the agreement, plus a 0.75 per cent increase through improvements to conditions, including parental leave and on-call allowances.

The spokesperson said this offer was rejected by the majority of its employees in a ballot in October and they were disappointed to see action be taken following "months of good faith bargaining".

"While Essential Energy has re-prioritised planned work to ensure urgent and critical work can be performed as required, mitigating the risk of outages not being responded to in a timely and safe manner, we do expect some unavoidable disruptions which could adversely impact the network and the time taken to restore power to customers during an unplanned outage," the spokesperson said.

"It is particularly regrettable that the ETU’s proposed industrial action coincides with the early phase of bushfire season and threatens to extend through the peak summer period.

"This also comes as our rural and regional communities seek to recover from the detrimental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic."

However, Mr Hicks said Essential Energy's offer did not reflect the increase in the Australian cost of living.

“Inflation rose 0.8 per cent this quarter, and 3.0 per cent over the twelve months to September," he said.

“It cannot be overstated, any wage rise below inflation is a pay cut and that is what Essential Energy has so far offered.

“So we've asked for a 3 per cent increase per annum, which we don't think is unreasonable or unrealistic."

Mr Hicks said the ETU was also asking for the national legislated super increases, starting at 0.5 per cent this year, as well as assurances Essential Energy would commit to having no forced redundancies.

"This is particularly important for smaller towns which have depots of only six or seven employees," he said.

"If they make redundancies, who's to say it's not your town which might lose its depot and you could end up waiting two to three hours from a crew based elsewhere to come and fix something."

This concern was echoed by Member for Barwon Roy Butler, who said there was also a bigger picture issue to consider.

"In recent years, Essential Energy have been shedding their workers and replacing them with external contractors," Mr Butler said

"A lot of these contractors end up coming from out of town too and typically have a much worse response time than local workers.

"I also cannot underestimate the economic importance of having wage earners actually living in a community, sending their kids to local schools and going to local shops."

Mr Butler and Mr Hicks will be meeting sometime next week to have further discussions about the ongoing negotiations between Essential Energy and the ETU.