Hundreds of journalists at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age voted to strike until Monday morning, hours after receiving news the company plans to slash costs through redundancies, tightening contributor budgets and reducing travel costs and expenses.
The strike decision followed a stop-work meeting on Thursday afternoon where staff expressed their anger at the redundancies and other cost-cutting measures slated for the Financial Review, SMH and The Age.
Journalists at the Canberra Times, Brisbane Times and Newcastle Herald have also voted to strike in solidarity.
Fairfax Media editorial director Sean Aylmer told staff the company believed it could become more efficient at producing quality journalism.
“We will shortly enter a consultation period with staff and the MEAA (media union) on a proposal to reduce costs across News and Business in the Sydney and Melbourne newsrooms by the equivalent of 120 full-time employees,” he said via email on Thursday morning.
Senior journalist Anne Davies said the reaction at the SMH was strong.
“Really angry. Just mystified about why they can’t spell out a clearer plan about the future of the company,” she said as staff walked out of the Pyrmont office.
“We don’t want them to sacrifice quality, because we think that is our unique point.”
The measures included a cut from 9000 to 6000 stories a month, one journalist said.
“Half of those are from contributors and the ratio will remain the same,” the journalist said.
Journalists at The Age also said they were devastated.
“Worried for my own future and my colleagues, but this is also just a terrible day for journalism and media diversity in Australia,” tweeted Sunday Age journalist Jill Stark.
Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance CEO Paul Murphy said the union would fight for every job.
“It’s the staff on the newsroom floor who have driven the transition to digital and through all the challenges continued to produce high-quality independent journalism,” he said.
“And this is the reward. Yet another savage cut to editorial.”
Fairfax Media said the journalists were taking unprotected industrial action and the “company will continue to publish across print and digital as usual.”
“We are operating in an ever-changing highly competitive media environment which involves rapid evolution of our publishing model,” Fairfax Media CEO Greg Hywood said.
“The initiatives we have proposed today are part of that adaptation and are necessary to sustain high quality journalism.”
AAP
