What’s another $5 million in Rupert Murdoch’s $5.6 billion deal to buy Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co.? Everything, according to the union representing employees at the Wall Street Journal.

Reporters at the Journal have been working without a contract since the end of January, one staff reporter says. And they’ve had enough.

To drive the point home, Wall Street Journal employees are picketing the paper’s New York headquarters at the World Financial Center at 11am EDT to 1pm EDT on Monday.

From the union’s press release: Staffers will engage in an information picket of WFC, headquarters of Dow Jones and Company. IAPE (Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees) members are disappointed with a “final offer” presented by company representatives last week to union negotiators. The message expressed by union members at today’s event is directed both toward current Dow Jones management, as well as prospective owners, News Corporation.

From Jim Browning, a staff reporter at the Journal: They are increasingly angry because, at a time when Dow Jones is offering multi-million dollar pay packages and golden parachutes to executives, not to mention the $32 million 2007 pay package recently announced for Rupert Murdoch himself, Dow Jones is trying to more than double health premiums and hold down salaries in a way that will cut the real, inflation-adjusted take-home pay of many Dow Jones employees. It would cost Dow Jones roughly $5 million over four years to make employees whole, but for some reason it views that sum as too high.(Photo: IAPE)
(Corrects spelling of reporter’s name)