Sixty per cent of ABC staff who took part in a vote rejected a deal that included a 10 per cent pay rise across three years.
It paved the way for a range of industrial actions, including a 24-hour strike scheduled for 11am on Wednesday.
It will be the organisation's first major strike since 2006.
While unions noted the pay offer was below inflation, some ABC members said insecure working arrangements that mean staff are stuck on rolling short-term contracts was just as much of a problem.
Radio journalist Kimberley Price said she had been on short-term contracts for three years and could be forced to move back onto a short-term deal for career progression
"This system led me to feel an enormous amount of financial stress, career anxiety and a constant feeling of 'am I good enough to be here?'" she posted on LinkedIn.
"It's an agonising cycle and while ABC employees deal with these stresses, some of our senior managers are receiving enormous pay rises."
Former ABC journalist Bension Siebert noted similar concerns, writing he was on eight separate contracts in three years before he left the broadcaster.
"Eventually, I became unwilling to beg, on hands and knees, to continue doing the same job for the ABC that I had proven myself capable of doing," he wrote on LinkedIn.
While non-media staff walked off the job in 2023, journalists did not take part.
This time, the strike won 90 per cent support among voting media-union members.
ABC managing director Hugh Marks said the deal was financially responsible and competitive for the industry.
He said claims of a lack of job security at the organisation was inaccurate.
"The average tenure of an ABC staff member is more than 10 years which is three times the economy average ... over 90 per cent of ABC staff are ongoing employees," Mr Marks said.
"The pay offer reflects the maximum level the ABC can sustainably provide and is balanced when looking across all the factors that we need to consider."
He had been accused by the media union of failing to guarantee jobs would not be cut and replaced by AI.
"Experienced journalists and media workers are being asked to do more with less - with fewer opportunities for pay progression, less certainty about their future and growing workloads," Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance chief executive Erin Madeley said.
A strike was also backed by a ballot of non-media ABC staff, represented by the Community and Public Sector Union.
Staff rejected the deal because it featured a pay rise below inflation, along with concerns about career progression, night-shift penalty rates and reproductive health leave, the union said.
"The last thing union members want to do is inconvenience loyal ABC audiences by disrupting programming and services, but key bargaining claims remain unresolved," the union's ABC section secretary, Jocelyn Gammie, said.
More than 4400 people work at the ABC, including 2000 in news, the largest division.
ABC is the 11th most used website in the nation ahead of Netflix, according to SimilarWeb.
ABC's chief people officer Deena Amorelli emailed staff on Monday to inform them the deal had been declined.
"The ABC will now make an application to the Fair Work Commission to assist with resolving bargaining," she said.
27°C