Around 10,000 allied health workers are pinning their hopes on a pay offer from district health boards (DHBs) in time to avert a fortnight of industrial action.
The staff plan to work-to-rule for two weeks from Monday and strike for 24 hours on 16 May if they cannot reach a deal with the DHBs following a year-and-a-half of pay talks.
Public Service Association organiser Will Matthews said if DHBs honoured Employment Relations Authority recommendations with an offer, the union would take it to members for a vote.
"There is a potential offer on the table based on the Employment Relations Authority's recommendations," he said.
"We're calling on the DHBs to honour those recommendations and end this dispute, but the window for them to do that without taking strike action is rapidly closing."
The workers include anaesthetic technicians, oral health therapists, alcohol and drug clinicians and sterile sciences technicians.
Matthews said many of them were leaving for higher paid jobs so they could pay their bills or being recruited by Australian health agencies where they could earn tens of thousands of dollars more.
"We have members that could earn more working at KFC or Bunnings than they do working in the health system," he said.
"We will be taking industrial action from Monday and will continue to do so until the employers bring an offer to the table that truly recognises the value of these workers."
Staff will refuse to work more than their contracted hours and take all their entitled breaks under the work-to-rule action.
An earlier round of strike action was called off during the Omicron outbreak in March, after the Employment Court ruled in favour of DHBs seeking an injunction.
