News Corp Australia canvasses staff on voluntary redundancies
News Corp Australia has begun approaching staff to gauge interest in voluntary redundancies after it was revealed the company would be seeking to make $40m in cuts from its local operations, the Australian Financial Review has reported.
The cuts were announced earlier this month after it was revealed advertising revenues for the quarter had declined 7%, or approximately 11% in local currency.
The union representing journalists promptly called on the publisher to confirm there would be no forced redundancies and, according to the Australian Financial Review, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) have said it has become aware that management has begun canvassing staff about voluntary redundancies.
The AFR reports the MEAA letter to staff, issued yesterday, reads: “Don’t do it alone. If you are contacted about a redundancy you have the right have a representative present when the discussion takes place.”
News Corp and MEAA have been approached for comment.
Didn’t News win the Sales team of the year at Media I? Was declining revenue a part of the criteria?
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@Not In Media Anymore But… Performing well in a declining market, that is declining incidentally through no fault of your own, is a very impressive performance by a sales team. But then you already know that don’t you and were just looking to make a snarky comment. Well done.
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@Mark Hall-Smith, $40m cuts and lost jobs don’t happen as result of “very impressive performance”.
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“Through no fault of your own”. Yeah, right. Here’s how it played out: 1. Deny there is a problem. 2. Pretend the problem won’t last long and you’re too big to fail. 3. Realise it’s a long-term problem and show the agility of an elephant in gumboots as you try to compete with established new businesses. 4. Praise everyone for not “declining” too much. 5. Goodnight.
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Always plenty of half informed opinions. Still one of the better media companies in Oz. As long as the ‘volunteers’ are from the bottom 10%, many of whom are paid a lot of money for not much work and may or may not write for a living then it is a good opportunity for News to clean out some dead wood.
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