Fairfax staff strike over redundancies
More than 600 staff at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have gone on strike for 24 hour following the company’s announcement today it will make major redundancies across its editorial production, lifestyle and photographic sections. It is understood staff at the Canberra Times, union members at the Australian Financial Review and also the staffs of regional publications Illawarra Mercury and Newcastle Herald have also walked out in solidarity with the colleagues at their sister papers.
The strike is effective immediately and sees staff walk out until 3pm tomorrow afternoon after a near unanimous vote of the memberships at both major mastheads. Ben Butler, deputy president of the media branch of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), which represents journalists photographers and subeditors, said the employees believed they had to draw “a line in the sand”.
“We think this is a the final line in the sand, we have to defend the final core principles of doing journalism at Fairfax Media,” Butler told Mumbrella.”Without our photographic colleagues and our production staff we are not a proper news organisation we are a contractor who buys in news.
“We don’t want that to happen and are determined to do all we can to protect the integrity of our work.”
The redundancies which were announced to staff at Fairfax by Allen Williams, managing director of Australian Publishing Media (APM) this morning would see more than 70 positions go from its newspaper arm, with key parts of the newspapers’s sub-editing likely to move to New Zealand while more than 30 positions in photographic would go as a result of using more pictures from Getty Images.
This would leave Fairfax with just five photographers in Sydney and five in Melbourne.
The move has angered many staff with one photographer telling Mumbrella they were “gutted” by the announcement.
Another Fairfax reporter said: “The question is certainly asked: what is the core of a newsroom? If they can outsource photographers then they are willing to basically outsource everything.
“What do we keep? Is it the investigations team? Sport? At what point is everything bar the newsdesk outsourced?”‘
It is understood that Fairfax management has sent a letter to staff noting that the industrial action is unprotected and that penalties include termination.
Journalists at the Sydney Morning Herald have also described how editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir addressed the newsroom in an “emotional” exchange with staff this morning.
“Darren called all the staff together and actually got quite emotional himself. He wasn’t crying or anything but you could see he was visibly shaken by having to tell us the news,” said one journalist.
“There were certainly tears in the newsroom, some staffers ran out crying.The photographers were all pretty emotional especially when they realised half of them were going to go.
“You can’t outsource all the photographic stuff. You need to be able to tell the photographer what you need for the story.”
There are also claims by staff that the company has acted in bad faith following the redundancies of 2012 which saw between 300-400 editorial positions go from the publisher.
“We did the 2012 negotiations in good faith and now this,” said one senior Fairfax reporter.
“In the sections we seem to be moving towards a more contributor based model for areas like food, wine etc. but where does that stop? Is every journalist eventually going to be a freelancer?”
The Brisbane Times staff have not walked out but said they “wholly supported” the actions of their colleagues and would not be involved in the creation of “any content not for the exclusive use of the Brisbane Times.”
A spokesperson for Fairfax said: “The company will continue to publish across print and digital as usual.”
Nic Christensen
I believe one of the problems with Fairfax was that the church and state divide was so distinct that they closed their minds to numerous commercial opportunities. Management has done a shocking job, but many of the journalists made their bed, and they’ve taken the good photogs with them. The attitude of many editorial staff at Fairfax is arrogant and closed minded. Too much emphasis was placed on circ over ads.
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the church and state divide was so distinct that they closed their minds to numerous commercial opportunities
What were they supposed to do – run positive editorial on clients in exchange for advertising dollars? in the main news sections, and not marked as advertising features or native advertising?
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Totally agree with another agency. Management let the lunatics run the asylum.
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After seeing first hand the way that journalists (specifically Fairfax) crucified a close friend of mine through a biased agenda as well as pilloried him throughout the legal process (he was later cleared of all charges), I have ZERO respect for the media.
During his many visits to the court house (which I also attended), photographers would wait and goad him with snarky comments in order to try and get a response from him – anything for a media grab. Even though he was subsequently cleared of all charges, he was forced to “resign” from his hard earned executive position when charges were initially laid and then he had to work as a traffic controller (lollipop man) for eight months until he could get back on his feet ( a man who had two degrees and a tradies certificate).
This is a guy with a wife and two kids (one with special needs) to support and the media hooked into him because they knew that he couldn’t respond during the media storm as the matter was before the courts.
His reputation is ruined forever because of journalists – but I don’t see any apology from them as they move on like hyenas for the next kill…er sorry..story.
The so called “fourth estate” always has its own agenda and always will. I say sucked in you bastards and go out and get a lollipop job if you feel hard done by. I hope you all rot in hell and you have NO sympathy from me.
If you presented the FACTS instead of sensationalizing things (third hand), you wouldn’t be out of work. Oh and don’t say you only print what people want to read…a cop out of the lowest order. If people wanted to read it, then why are you out of work?
Up yours, you scum bags and if my mate sees you asking for a job (he now manages 20 lollipop teams), I hope he directs you back to Centrelink.
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To those of you cunningly negotiating your way around news site paywalls, this is what happens to people’s lives when you do that. News articles don’t just appear – they are produced by journo’s and togs who need to be paid and the ad revenue that was there isn’t as much these days.
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Dear Journo.
Yes, that is what they should have done but marked accordingly as paid, as suggested to them before the RP merger.
One of many, many, examples of commercial opportunities missed. We can add events, data, Fairfax shop, AFR Access, and so on to the list. At no point would editorial independence be in question.
Senior editorial staff wouldn’t even take meetings with senior commercial staff to discuss the opportunities.
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WTF, thats right, news articles don’t just appear, press releases have to be altered.
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@WTF “To those of you cunningly negotiating your way around news site paywalls….”
I wouldn’t call deleting my cookies or searching the headline ‘cunning’ – I’d call the paywall crap.
News and Fairfax are welcome to go to a hard paywall anytime (and often announce they will be) and yet one never eventuates.
Are they terrified very few people would actually pay for their product? And if what does that say about the product?
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