Journalists at the Evening Post in Wellington are the latest newspaper workers to go on strike.

They walked off the job at 8.30am today in protest over their employer's refusal to negotiate a national collective agreement.

Printers, electricians and engineers at the other Wellington newspaper, the Dominion, also went on strike for an hour last night between 11pm and midnight. Dominion journalists were on strike between 1pm and 4pm yesterday.

Both papers are owned by the Rupert Murdoch-controlled INL.Workers at all the INL dailies and Auckland suburbans have been seeking a national collective agreement. Talks earlier this month broke down after the company refused to consider the union's proposals.

Meanwhile, journalists at the NZ Herald in Auckland are still on strike over a breakdown in their negotiations. More than 100 walked out at 1.30pm yesterday because of attempts by their employer, Wilson and Horton, to remove more than 30 editorial positions from the collective agreement. The strike took out the paper's key political team, forcing editorial executives to cover the Budget themselves. The journalists are expected to return to work at 1.30pm today.

Journalists at the national news agency NZPA returned to work at 11.30pm yesterday after a 12-hour strike. Their employer is also trying to keep many of them out of the collective agreement.

Union national secretary Andrew Little said that newspaper owners were clearly colluding over trying to reduce union collectives at the country's newspapers.

"Unless there is a change of stance by the publishers, further action cannot be ruled out."

ENDS

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