Media

BROKEN SPIRITS: The day the Fairfax militancy music died

A four day strike by Fairfax editorial staff appears to have massively back-fired as they return to work today.

The decision by the union not to illegally picket the company’s printing presses has been seen as a crucial turning point. Behind the scenes, the left-wing Manufacturing Workers Union were being heavily pressured by the journalists union to strike. In the end, the printers said they wouldn’t cross a picket line, if there was one at the Tullamarine printing presses. But the implications of that for the journalists’ union could have been a multiple million dollar damages claim to compensate for the illegal strike.

The Age in particular was once known to have journalists who would embark on industrial action with even the slightest provocation.

But the world is very different now. The current newsroom has endured lots of niggling changes that would normally get militant union members very excited, slashing of the hours of the caf, cutting back on perks and tightening up on much rorted expenses.

DINOSAURS REVOLT
This strike came at a time when the staff are fully conscious of the problems facing the business, many wondering whether they should leave the company some refer to as Jurassic Park due to the average age of its editorial staff and its dependence on rapidly declining classifieds ads revenue.

But the “provocation” they faced last week was pretty considerable in traditional industrial terms at Fairfax. A huge number of lay-offs, announced without consultation or discussion while the management is refusing automatic payrises for the large number of its editorial staff paid more than two thousand dollars a week to write about subjects largely coinciding with their hobbies or hobby-horses.

VEXNEWS has learned from a Fairfax management insider that a list of “largely unproductive” editorial staff – including reporters whose by-lines coincide with blue moons – are marked for ousting. He said wryly “Once they would have been promoted.”

FOUND WANTING
Not only did the striking workers not achieve much, they appear to have proven that the mastheads where they work can continue without them, albeit in a pretty rough around the edges state. Tactically, it appears they would have been better threatening a strike – and gone through a secret ballot and all that – rather than demonstrating how ineffectual they have become with a botched effort that had zero impact.

The company is now free to down-size, outsource and restructure at will, knowing with confidence there’s not much the union or the mortgage-stressed middle-class militant staff can do about it. Some pre-press work is being outsourced to Pagemasters, a subsidiary of AAP and Fairfax management are believed to be actively considering offshore outsourcing to India too but it is clear that the number of reporters will be cut to the lowest level in many years.

David Kirk and Brian McCarthy’s tough leadership and resolve were demonstrated powerfully when they axed failed left-wing Age Editor-in-Chief Andrew Jaspan and SMH columnist Mike Carlton who refused to submit his weekly column and “cross the virtual picket-line.” There are competing reports about whether he’ll be rehired. Some believe he won’t be, saying that a Mussolini style “shoot one, gain the respect of many” approach for which Brian McCarthy is well known in his industry.

THE DREAM IS OVER
They have also sent other messages that they won’t be push-overs any more. They’ve withdrawn from the union awards, the Walkley’s, once the scene of a drunken brawl between Stephen Mayne and the pill-popping Glenn Milne. They are clearly going to act much more like – dare we say  it – News Limited management who run a tight ship.

The days of The Age being a “journalist’s newspaper” (code for “your expense claims aren’t scrutinised here”) are now officially over.

Management were clearly stretched in filling the editorial hole but did a reasonable job sufficient to make many wonder why they employ anything like the hundreds of editorial staff who keep the Age red (no spelling mistake intended).

VEXNEWS understands management prevailed on employees at the Canberra Times and within Rural Press to get them to submit work for publication in the Herald and The Age. The McCarthy crew have proved themselves to be very determined in an old fashioned, restrained, buttoned-down country accountant kind of way. They didn’t rush off to court to sue the union, that can be left for another time. They just kept getting the paper out and managed to prevail.

© 2008 VEXNEWS 2010©.