Fairfax Media editorial staff in Sydney and Melbourne voted to strike for a week after the company announced the loss of 125 jobs in a $30 million cost cutting exercise.

The journalist positions represent about 25% of editorial staff at the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review.

A short time ago, Fairfax shares were down 1.8% to $1.06 as the market overall fell around 1%.

A one-week strike would mean no union-member journalists from Fairfax working on federal budget day on Tuesday, May 9. Fairfax, along with other major media groups, fields a large team in Canberra for the budget.

Staff started tweeting the strike news after a stop work meeting:

Journalists from other media groups reported Fairfax journalists walking away from covering courts.

The major Fairfax newspapers are expected to be published as usual tomorrow using management staff.

“The decision indicates that, yet again, Fairfax is opting for savage cuts that will only weaken its business further rather than investing in its products and working to achieve smarter outcomes,” says Paul Murphy of the journalists’ union, the MEAA.

“None of the other parts of the Fairfax business are worth anything without the journalism and yet it is the journalism that Fairfax always cuts.”

(Disclosure: Allure Media, the publisher of Business Insider, is 100% owned by Fairfax Media.)

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