Nine newspaper journalists to strike during Olympics over pay if management doesn’t ‘resolve the issues’

Journalists at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age will walk off the job for five days later this week if their demands, including for a higher pay rise, aren’t met.

Nine newspaper journalists will strike from Friday unless management resolves the issues in a meeting on Wednesday afternoon, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) has said.

Union members last week voted to take industrial action over what they say is the company’s unacceptable offer of an annual 2.5% pay rise during negotiations on a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA).

The strike would affect coverage of the opening weekend of the Paris Olympic Games. Nine Entertainment paid $100m for the Australian rights to the event.

Related: ‘Significant assault’: two staff from Nine’s Olympic broadcast team attacked in Paris in suspected robbery

The strike will cover all journalists in Nine’s publishing division including the Australian Financial Review, the Brisbane Times and WAtoday as well as the SMH and the Age.

The planned industrial action comes three weeks after Nine Entertainment’s chief executive, Mike Sneesby, told staff the company was cutting 200 jobs due to the “economic headwinds” facing the media sector. About 90 positions on the legacy mastheads were to be axed.

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Staff have privately criticised Sneesby for carrying the Olympic torch in Paris hours after they voted to strike over pay and conditions in the face of looming redundancies.

“The decision to go on strike was not made lightly as an event like the Olympics only comes along once every four years,” the acting director of the media section of the MEAA, Michelle Rae, said.

“Members regret the disruption the industrial action may cause. We urge management of Nine Publishing to resolve the issues in the bargaining meeting on Wednesday.”

Sources said some Nine staff in Paris were upset about the prospect of strike action and had pleaded with organisers not to proceed.

Sneesby has said cuts are necessary due to an advertising downturn and a decision by Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – not to enter new multimillion-dollar deals for content when contracts expire this year.

The company said “some much-loved colleagues” would be leaving the business and “tough decisions” would be made by mid-July to save $30m.

Journalists say the job cuts would fall disproportionately upon the publishing division and have called on management to freeze their own bonuses and spend the money on the newsroom.

“These mastheads are strong financial performers and have a reputation for award-winning journalism, and Nine needs to invest in its editorial front line ahead of its financial bottom line,” MEAA members said.

It has been a turbulent year so far for Nine, which has commissioned an independent review after acknowledging “alleged inappropriate behaviour and broader cultural issues” in its television newsrooms.

The review follows allegations of inappropriate behaviour by former television news boss Darren Wick. Chairman Peter Costello resigned during the fallout and after he was accused of assaulting a News Corp journalist at Canberra airport .

Costello dismissed the allegations at the time, saying “there was no assault” and that the journalist, Liam Mendes, “fell over an advertising placard”. Wick has not commented publicly.

Nine Entertainment paid $305m for the exclusive rights to the next five Olympic Games, from Paris in 2024 to Brisbane in 2032.

Staff were due to meet management on Wednesday from 2pm.

Nine has a crew of about 200 in Paris to cover the Olympic Games . Two of them have allegedly been attacked in what colleagues described as a suspected robbery of a “serious physical nature”.