Around 60 pilots based in Perth met today to discuss the pay offer from National Jet, which has pulled its earlier deal of a 12.4% pay rise over five years to a new deal of CPI (consumer price index) pay increases each year.

Rick Burton, organiser for the Transport Workers Union (TWU) that represents the pilots, told MiningNews.net the pilots had said they would consider the earlier deal along with a few more negotiations.

However since the pay offer was taken off the table, the pilots voted to start industrial action with a 24-hour work stoppage.

The strike has been sanctioned by the Industrial Relations Commission following a secret ballot vote.

Burton said the work stoppage will be confirmed tomorrow when voting results from union member pilots in Darwin and Cairns are finalised.

Altogether 78 union pilots will vote on the issue.

Burton said two TWU representatives met with National Jet late last week over several days to negotiate a union collective agreement, but the air service provider would only settle for an employer-employee agreement.

But Burton added that National Jet chief executive, Peter Nottage, had not ruled out the possibility of a union collective agreement.

The pilots are currently on workplace agreements which they want scrapped for collective agreements that include several other conditions such as training and equal pay.

National Jet counts Rio Tinto, Minara Resources, Newcrest, Santos and Bristow Helicopters among its clients and transports FIFO workers in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.