The Communications, Electrical, Plumbing Union (CEPU) said today that the telco giant was trying to punish employees who wanted a union-negotiated workplace agreement by offering them less pay.

"(Telstra) is waging war on its employees by offering only a pathetic pay rise over three years and refusing to allow its employees to have access to arbitration for fair treatment," the union's president Len Cooper said.

In response, Telstra workers have voted to start ongoing industrial action from Friday.

Mr Cooper said the strike would disrupt maintenance and installation of high-tech services, communication systems, internet and computer services, particularly for corporate and government customers.

It may also impact upon the telephone and data network transmission systems throughout Australia, he said.

Meanwhile, Telstra has dumped its controversial $2.20 administration fee for people paying their bills over the counter or by mail less than two months after it was introduced.

CEO David Thodey said the change would be implemented over the next few months and Telstra would automatically refund all of the bill payment administration fees paid by current customers during that time and since the new charge was first introduced on September 14.

"I have listened to the community debate and believe that the way we introduced the fee did not align with our commitment to put customers back at the heart of our business," Mr Thodey said in a statement.

"It is now clear to me that introducing this fee across our existing plans was the wrong way to encourage customers to move to electronic payments.

"We designed the fee in a way that exempted more than a million elderly, pensioners and disadvantaged people but it was still unacceptable to many of our customers."

Mr Thodey said Telstra was still trying to encourage customers to consider using electronic payments.

"While others in our industry still charge for cash payments over the counter, Telstra will now look for other ways to encourage customers to move to electronic payments, possibly including the introduction of optional electronic-only plans."