Maternal and child health and immunisation nurses voted this week to start protected protest action with administrative bans.

Australian Nurses Federation members have been negotiating with the council for seven months for pay parity with other municipalities and lighter workloads.

Federation state secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick told yesterday Warrnambool nurses were the second-lowest paid across all Victorian municipalities.

"They are 18.25 per cent behind other councils including Moyne," she said.

"We want parity with other public sector nurses and a workload in line with the industry standards."

Ms Fitzpatrick described the city council's latest offer of an extra four per cent or $36 a week back paid to July as an insult and called for city chief executive Bruce Anson to resume negotiations in the next few days.

She understood the offer yesterday was made outside the union bargaining system.

"The council is thumbing is nose at legislative provisions relating to the good faith bargaining principles contained in the Australian Fair Work Act," Ms Fitzpatrick said.

"Council is putting its head in the sand ignoring the consequence of being one of the lowest paying councils and trying to divide staff member against staff member.

"We've got 74 councils to negotiate satisfactory deals and none have taken seven months without result like Warrnambool."

The federation says Warrnambool municipal nurses are responsible for 151 birth enrolments each while the acceptable industry standard is between 125 and 135.

Five child and maternal health nurses are employed by the city and the federation warns of a staff exodus if pay and conditions are not improved.

"Nurses never take industrial action lightly, but feel Warrnambool City Council isn't listening to their concerns and doesn't understand that to maintain this important primary health service it has to pay nurses properly and address high workloads," Ms Fitzpatrick said.

The initial bans will include electronic diaries, responding to or writing work-related emails, submission of statistics and attending work-related meetings.

It could escalate to limiting visits to babies under eight months, a ban on three-and-a-half year checks, a ban on children above 12 months of age and limiting the schedule to seven half-hour appointments a day.