Thousands of Telstra employees across Australia are expected to walk off the job on Tuesday in a bid to force the telecommunications company to deliver a bigger pay rise.

The 24-hour strike is expected to be concentrated in the group's maintenance area, which covers fault repairs, investigations, new national broadband network (NBN) connections and diagnostics.

Telstra is gearing itself up for a strike from some of its workforce on Tuesday. Credit:Bloomberg

Triple Zero call centres, which are controlled by Telstra, and any staff performing services relating to medical emergencies are excluded from the strike action. Telstra said it did not expect any material impact on its customers generally.

Telstra has been in negotiations with the Communications Electrical Plumbing Union (CEPU) since early 2018 over a new enterprise bargaining agreement. The union has been angered by Telstra's proposed pay rise of 4.5 per cent over three years, or 1.5 per cent a year, which it argues is a pay cut in real terms as it is below the current rate of inflation.