BY JONATHAN STRAUSS
SYDNEY — Journalists, photographers and artists at the highly profitable John Fairfax Holdings, publishers of the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review, Business Review Weekly, some regional and Sunday newspapers, and online news services, have won an acceptable company offer in enterprise bargaining negotiations.
The vote by 1200 Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) member to strike for 24 hours on August 30, and to hold subsequent rolling stoppages, came after a long series of negotiations. The unionists' chief objections to the company offer during the negotiations were that problems such as unpaid overtime had not been addressed that the pay rise offered was less than the expected cost of living increases. Editorial independence is also an ongoing concern among Fairfax workers.
Much-thinner versions of the Age and Sydney Morning Herald were produced by management and non-union labour on August 30. Fairfax then imposed a lockout on the workers. A picket by Age workers became a community assembly after the company gained a court injunction against the unionists.
The "assembly" prevented all but a few thousand of the September 1 edition, on the morning of the AFL grand final, being delivered to newsagents. On September 2, an agreement between the MEAA and Fairfax led to an end to the lockout and a resumption in negotiations.
A Sydney meeting of union members on September 4 condemned the company's "deplorable action". The meeting gave rousing ovations to Age members who attended. It voted thanks to the ACTU, the Victorian Trades Hall Council, and printing and electrical workers and their unions for their support.
The new Fairfax offer, which MEAA members voted to accept on September 7 and 8, is expected to maintain real wage levels, provide better resources for print journalists and fewer negative changes to profit-sharing arrangements. The union is continuing to pursue outstanding issues for members involved in imaging work in Sydney and at the Warrnambool Standard.