THE AFL does not expect players to take industrial action during the JLT Community Series despite Collingwood skipper Scott Pendlebury flagging the possibility of sitting down on the field as a sign of protest to the ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations.

Pendlebury said earlier this month that he would have "no qualms" about sitting down in the first quarter of the game.

However, AFL general manager of clubs and operations, Travis Auld, said he had not received any indication that the players would take part in that form of industrial action.

"There's certainly been no indication of that ('sit downs')," Auld said on Tuesday. 

"We are meeting regularly with them (the AFL Players' Association), we are making progress, so with that being the case, I don’t foresee any issue."

The series kicks off on Thursday night at Etihad Stadium when Collingwood takes on Essendon. Hawthorn and Geelong play on Friday night and another four games will be played across the weekend.

When is your team playing? Check out the full JLT Community Series fixture

The previous CBA expired on October 31 last year. Clubs are working on the basis that total player payments will increase by 10 per cent in 2017.

"This is a large, and at times, complicated deal, so it will take some time. There is no hard deadline on that. We're confident that discussions are progressing," he said.

The 17-5 fixture format is being discussed by a working party, led by Auld. It would involve resetting the fixture after every club has played each other once and breaking up the ladder into three groups of six.

"We're into that process. It will take some time, it's incredibly complicated. There's a lot of impacts of changing our fixture but we want to give it some real consideration," he said.

"Perhaps it ends up where it is or perhaps we change it, but it's too early to tell."

Auld did not rule out the 17-5 fixture for next year with AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan keen to see if it could be done.

"Gill likes to push things. We've seen that with the women's competition, that it's never too late," Auld said.

"We're going pretty hard at the moment to see if we're going to make some changes, what changes could be made in 2018.

"(The AFL has) not necessarily (ruled out a change for next year), but we'd need to get to a position in the next few months, I would've thought."