UPDATE: Nine management ‘prepared to meet’ with MEAA once journalists return to work
Nine’s striking journalists are set to return to work on Wednesday and will head straight into negotiations with the network’s management.
Staff from Nine Publishing’s suite of publications – The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review, Brisbane Times, and WAtoday – walked off the job last Friday, “taking a stand for newsrooms that reflect the diversity of the communities they are reporting for, for ethical and transparent use of Artificial Intelligence, and for better wages”.
“A profitable division of a profitable company should not be cutting jobs,” WAtoday writer Emma Young said at Friday’s strike.
“How many jobs could have been saved if TV personalities with nothing to do with the Olympics weren’t going to bed right now in luxury hotels in Paris? How many jobs could they have saved if this board had done more to prepare for the exit of Meta funding that they knew was coming?”
There was no movement over the weekend, as the papers ran an increased number of editorials and opinion pieces from contributing freelancers – many of them submitted well in advance of the strike — to make up from the journalistic shortfall.
On Monday morning, journalists again assembled in front of the offices of The Age in Melbourne, and Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney.
Nine CEO Mike Sneesby sent an email to staff from Paris expressing how “profoundly disappointed” he was by the decision to strike.
“We have offered a new and improved agreement yesterday and were negotiating in good faith to a constructive outcome,” he wrote to staff, hours after the walkout.
“While we recognise the right of unions to take industrial action, Tory [Maguire] and I firmly believe a return to the negotiating table is the best pathway to progressing the EBA.”
Sneesby will get his chance to renegotiate on Wednesday, following his return to the Nine offices this morning.
A spokesperson from the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) told Mumbrella on Tuesday morning: “There’s a meeting scheduled with management on Wednesday after the union members return to work.
“We’ll see what management comes up with then.”
On Monday morning, the MEAA released a video featuring a number of prominent Australian figures, including Paul Kelly, Tony Armstrong and Shaun Micallef, urging Nine not to “torch journalism”.
On Tuesday evening, the MEAA confirmed that the striking journalists will return to their desks at 11am on Wednesday and are prepared to meet with management.
“It is overdue for Nine’s chief executive Mike Sneesby to listen to the concerns of MEAA members that independent and fearless journalism that holds power to account requires investment and support from management,” MEAA acting director Michelle Rae said in a statement.
“Sneesby and his fellow executives need to get their priorities in order by recognising there is no financial bottom line without a strong journalistic frontline.
“The belligerence of management leading up to and during this strike has damaged the company’s reputation.
“We congratulate all MEAA members for their determination and solidarity during this strike and now look forward to constructive negotiations with management to win a fair deal so journalists can get back to what they do best: informing the public, holding the powerful to account, and exposing wrongdoing.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Sneesby will be studied by MBAs for years in how not to handle crisis Comms as a CEO.
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Dont forget – he stayed at a five star hotel in Paris and holidayed in Greece with his family!
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Honestly, it’s just been a disaster of management. Never seen trust break down so badly. Tory Maguire will have an impossible job to build trust back with staff, it’s just totally gone.
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