The troubled National Broadband Network project is firmly in the sights of Communication and Media Authority public servants as they prepare to strike.
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And the Productivity Commission's workforce has become the latest group of employees to crush a pay offer made under the Coalition government's controversial bargaining policy in a ballot, voting four-to-one to reject the deal.
It is also understood that a wage deal was accepted in a decisive ballot result at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority on Friday, although the exact margin was unclear.
The industrial unrest raging across the public service looks set to spread to ACMA despite hopes of a fresh start under the new public service minister.
Members of technical union Professionals Australia at the Communication and Media Authority will vote on strike action after securing orders from the Fair Work Commission to allow the ballot.
The ACMA public servants have not had a pay rise since mid-2013 and are trying to force their bosses to make a new enterprise agreement offer after the previous deal expired more than 14 months ago.
The authority did not respond on Friday to requests for comment.
If the union members vote to strike, they will be protected if they refuse to help the government with its roll-out of the National Broadband Network, presenting another headache for the politically vexed infrastructure project.
There would also be stop-work actions of up to 24 hours and refusals to co-operate with other government agencies in the Communications portfolio.
Other high-profile events might be disrupted with the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva and the government's response to The Spectrum review also singled out for potential industrial action.
At the productivity Commission, 119 out of 150 eligible public servants cast ballots on the deal they had been offered with 81 per cent of voters rejecting the proposal.
Announcing the result to the workforce on Friday morning, the Commission's Acting Head of Office Nina Davidson was circumspect.
"We intend to reconvene the Bargaining Committee shortly," Ms Davidson told her colleagues.
The Commission's workers had been offered pay increases worth 4.5 per cent over three years, with 2.5 per cent paid on commencement to sweeten the deal but with similar "productivity offsets" that had been sought by agencies across the service.
Similar deals have been resoundingly rejected by public servants at some of the government's largest departments like Human Services, Immigration and Health, while a small number of agencies including Treasury and the Public Service Commission have accepted similar agreements.
The giant Defence Department and the Australian Taxation Office are yet to vote.
Nadine Flood, National Secretary of the main workplace union the CPSU, described the huge no-vote as "one of the last gasps" of the Coalition's tough public sector bargaining framework.
"This vote is surely one of the last gasps in the Government's failed bargaining policy, and reinforces that the only sensible option for new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Minister Michaelia Cash is to take a new approach," Ms Flood said.
"The Productivity Commission's core function is advising Government on economic issues affecting Australians; its expert staff are providing a clear signal that the Government's bargaining policy doesn't pass the fairness test."
Senator Cash indicated this week that she was open to dialogue with the CPSU and other public service unions in an effort to resolve the bargaining stand-off but no meetings have yet been scheduled.
