The union that represents ACT prison guards says its members are being blackmailed over the plan to supply clean needles to prisoners.
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The claim was made before Thursday's long-awaited meeting between the union and the ACT Government over the controversial proposal.
The Community and Public Sector Union,
The guards' pay rise has been held up for more than a year while the issue has been thrashed out.
The union says a bargaining agreement for staff has nominally expired and not been replaced for more than a year because the government wanted to remove a clause in the guards' workplace agreement which prevented any needle-exchange program from going ahead "without prior consultation and agreement" from unions.
Last month, ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said the agreement was being held up by the union's refusal to allow the the Fair Work Commission to arbitrate on the clause.
ACT Corrections Minister Shane Rattenbury said the two sides were holding a working meeting on Thursday.
"I'm hopeful that we can resolve the outstanding issues, get the EBA sorted and get the workers their back pay as soon as possible," he said.
Vince McDevitt, ACT secretary for the CPSU, said the proposal to give needles to prisoners was bad policy and dangerous for prisoners.
"The government is seeking to force through their needle supply policy by misrepresenting it as a legal-technical issue with enterprise bargaining," he said.
"We maintain this is a political issue about a poor public policy which would see the government providing needles to prisoners in jail to inject illegal drugs.
"We think it's regrettable the government is seeking to in effect blackmail our members by denying them a pay rise if not do agree to roll out the red carpet for needles in the jail."
Following a meeting with Mr Rattenbury last week, a two-week period has been set for the renewed discussions.
"This is a bid to break the deadlock that has seen our members denied their pay increase and a new agreement since june 2013," Mr McDevitt said.
"The meeting on Thursday should bring clarity as to whether the government is fair dinkum or not but the custodial officers' patience is rapidly becoming exhausted.
"It may be that the government, as the unstoppable force, actually impacts with custodial officers as the immovable object."
