The Guardian's union chapel voted almost unanimously Thursday to initiate a formal dispute procedure with management over pay and conditions, the Guardian reported.

About 180 of the Guardian's union chapel voted for the motion, no one voted against it and there were a few abstentions. The vote authorised the National Union of Journalists' Chapel to prepare for a strike ballot, as well as organise a meeting between NUJ national officials and Guardian management and hold a meeting with Acas, an employment dispute prevention organisation.

Guardian staffers are disputing shift patterns, length of the work week, availability of journalists to work across print and web, the proposed replacement of the no compulsory redundancies clause and the implementation of a single house agreement to cover journalists on the Guardian, Observer and Guardian Unlimited Web site, according to a Guardian report.

Guardian News and Media management has offered the staff a two-year, 4.8 percent inflation-only pay deal, which the chapel motion said was the worst attack on working conditions “in a generation,” the report stated.

“The chapel instructs its officers to declare a dispute over the management's attempt to scrap our existing no compulsory redundancy agreement; lengthen working hours; increase the working week and make an annual pay settlement and a pensions deal that was part of last year's agreement conditional on acceptance of these changes," the motion read, according to the Guardian. “The chapel further instructs the officers to make preparations for a strike ballot and to call a further mandatory meeting to trigger than ballot in the event of a failure to reach agreement.”

A Guardian spokesman said full proposals will be discussed with national officers, “and, if necessary, Acas.”

“The terms and conditions of Guardian and Observer journalists are as good as any on any British newspaper, if not better - and will continue to be so,” the spokesman is quoted as saying by the Guardian.