The workers who pick up after Canberra's late-night revellers in the city centre will leave rubbish to build up for the start of the week in protest over lengthy, unresolved pay talks.
The ACT government staff tasked with keeping the city clean will take protected industrial action in an attempt to secure an improved pay deal.
The general service officers will put a work ban on collecting general litter in the city centre on Sunday and Monday.
The workers will keep collecting dangerous and hazardous waste, like syringes and broken glass.
The workers, represented by the Construction, Forestry, Maritime Employees Union, want a 5 per cent pay increase this year, followed by 4 per cent in 2027 and 3 per cent in 2028, along with an allowance for front-line workers.
The union said 300 of its members voted in the protected action ballot, an 80 per cent turnout, with 99 per cent of those who voted backing protected industrial action.
The union said the industrial action starting on Sunday followed nearly a year of bargaining with the ACT government.
"GSOs take pride in keeping Canberra clean, safe, and maintained. They don't take industrial action lightly, but have been left with no alternative in their fight for fair wages and proper recognition for the essential frontline work they perform," the union's ACT assistant secretary, Michael Hiscox, said.
The union had previously said the government had repeatedly rebuffed the workers' reasonable requests in enterprise bargaining and industrial action could halt "road maintenance, litter collection, sports ground maintenance, park mowing and maintenance of ACT government facilities".
The lowest-paid general service officers secured a 34 per cent pay rise over three years in 2023 and agreed at the time to a deal that was set to push their pay from just under $51,000 a year to more than $68,000.
The ACT government is facing pressure from unions as it works in the latest bargaining round to reach agreements with its staff.
The Community and Public Sector Union has said it would urge public servants in the territory to vote against the latest pay offer.
Government workers were last month presented with an updated deal that included inflation-linked top-up payments in the second and third year of the proposed three-year deal.
The government intends to put that deal for its administrative agreement to a ballot of its staff.
But 66 per cent of CPSU members who voted in a union-run survey wanted to reject the deal, which kept the core pay increases at 3 per cent a year over three years.
Public Service Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith told a budget estimates on July 21 said there had been genuine engagement with unions in an effort to strike new deals.
"While there has obviously not been positive support at this point for the pay offer, there has been some really good progress made on a range of conditions. The ACT public service is already one of the best paid in the country," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
"We also have very positive conditions that support a family friendly workplace."
