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.