Fairfax staff on The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald are mulling whether to hit the barricades after a Fair Work Australia ballot on Friday showed a resounding 96% of union voters supported taking industrial action over stalled enterprise bargaining negotiations.

For a strike to be legal under Fair Work rules, 50% of union members must respond to the call to arms, and of those, 50% must vote yes. Fairfax Members comfortably satisfied both hurdles with 64% — or 632 — union members voting out of 969 on the roll. Of those, an overwhelming 96% backed strike action, with 604 for and just 23 against. Under the legislation, strikes may last for 72 hours and members can also decide to impose ‘work-to-rule’ restrictions.

“The union is back negotiating with the company this week, and I guess we’ll go from there,” one Fairfax staffer in the thick of it said this morning. The newsrooms of both metro dailies have become increasingly bolshy in recent months, with Age and SMH foot soldiers arcing up over CEO Greg Hywood’s decision to sack most of the papers’ sub-editors. The current EBA expired on July 1, and serious sticking points remain over pay rates, coverage and training.