About 200 workers have walked off the job at a Napier timber mill in a 24-hour strike.
Workers at the Pan Pac Mill have rejected the company's offer to settle a collective agreement, describing the offer as "miserly".
The workers are represented by FIRST Union and E Tū.
FIRST's Hawke's Bay organiser, Mike McNab, said its members agreed to forgo a pay rise and benefits when Pan Pac was struggling to turn a profit.
The company is now back making a healthy profit and has refused to acknowledge how hard the union's members worked to get it there, he said.