Will Rupert Murdoch face a strike at Dow Jones (DJ)?

The main union representing newsroom employees at Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE: DJ) better hope it can settle its contract dispute with the publisher of the Wall Street Journal before Rupert Murdoch completes his $5 billion acquisition of the company.

Dow Jones is taking a tough line with the 2,000-member Independent Association of Publishers' Employees (IAPE), making it a final offer of a three-year contract with 3% raises in each year with sharply higher health care costs, according to Editor & Publisher. Members of the union may call for a strike vote as soon as this weekend, the publication said.

This dispute comes as the Australian tycoon is trying to make nice with the editorial staff at the Journal, personally trying to talk some people out of taking jobs at competitors. He's also promising to make significant investments in the Journal.

But Murdoch wants to be nice to the Dow Jones employees on his terms, not the union's. News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) shareholders also are going to keep a close eye on the costs of integrating Dow Jones into the rest of Murdoch's empire.

The IAPE may have little choice but to accept a bad contract now and hope better times will come later. That's not great news, but then again there's very little of that for employees in most media companies.