Fairfax journalists in Australia are starting a one week strike today, sending what they say is a huge wake-up call to the company on what's at stake.

It follows the company's plans to cut 125 editorial jobs -- about a quarter of its news jobs at the affected papers.

Correspondent Lesley Yeomans told Rachel Smalley Fairfax is trying to save $30 million.

"They're bleeding advertising at the moment with online organisations, like Google and Facebook, taking a lot of that advertising revenue."

Adam Portelli from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance union said responsibility for the financial woes should be coming from higher up.

"Cutting costs at the managerial level where some of the salaries are, frankly, quite extraordinary. The response to that repeatedly, is any discussion of executive salaries is irrelevant."

The strike action will likely run through the release of next week's Federal Budget on Tuesday.