Unions will launch a major advertising campaign targeting soaring executive salaries and company profits as the reason to overhaul workplace laws.

The new month-long Australian Council of Trade Unions blitz will hit screens and airwaves across the country on Sunday.

"The CEOs' pay is going up again and companies are making huge profits, but they won't even give us a pay rise to keep up with the cost of living - just enough to keep my head above water," the woman in the TV ad says.

"Things are really out of balance. We're all getting ripped off. Let's stand together and get things changed."

Radio advertisements will promote 13 rallies in cities and regional centres kicking off on October 18 in Perth and ending early November.

The latest weapon in the ACTU's Change The Rules campaign will be unveiled after secretary Sally McManus dialled up the pressure on Labor to support sector-wide bargaining in a major speech last week.

"The economy has changed and the narrow enterprise-only bargaining system is failing a lot of people. Stronger rights for working people will help rebalance the system," Ms McManus said on Sunday.

"Working people have had enough of businesses taking obscene profits and CEOs making exorbitant salaries at the expense of the pay rises and job security we need to get ahead of the cost of living."

Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O'Dwyer has warned industry-wide action would paralyse whole sectors of the economy, with the potential to shut down essential services like schools and hospitals.

She said the proposal was a recipe for returning Australia to industrial conflict levels not seen since the 1970s.

Major employer groups have also lashed the ACTU's demands.

"The only ones who would gain from industry bargaining are unions, which represent only nine per cent of workers in the private sector," Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said last week.