As hundreds of revved-up Fairfax staff move en-masse to rallying points in Sydney and Melbourne to be addressed by the likes of Father Bob Maguire in their fight over CEO Greg Hywood’s planned sacking of 300 comrades, the anecdotes have have been flowing thick and fast into Crikey‘s inbox.
With Victoria Police casing The Age‘s Media House HQ, the “Fair go Fairfax” T-shirts were making their first appearance in newsrooms, decorated with badges: “Save quality journalism. Maintain your Age.”
Letters of support have been received from Malcolm Fraser, Adam Bandt, Friends of the ABC, and the two Bobs — Brown and Carr — this week, with Fraser taking a direct swipe at Hywood in a stirring letter of support, noting that “recent management changes” were behind the mass layoffs.
Addressing the massive crowd this morning, former Victorian premier John Cain, speaking with the conviction that saw his state sail through the grim years of the mid-1980s, thundered that we would “all be poorer” if Age subs were sacked and quality declined.
Fashion designer Jenny Bannister has embraced the campaign with gusto, donning a dress declaring “Subs are still in fashion at Fairfax”, which looked like a cross between an apron and sandwich board.
As Crikey‘s deadline approached, Maguire was also keying up to bless the troops. In 2008, the radio radical conducted a “funeral” for Australian Workplace Agreements after Prime Minister Julia Gillard said they were dead and buried.
With an urn holding the ashes of an AWA, once the pride and joy of Parliament House evictee John Howard, Father Bob famously said a prayer: “May the burial of these AWAs remind us that death comes to us all — political and human — and it is the natural passage for all life. May these AWAs sleep on and not reappear in an eternal slumber in your godly care.”
Fairfax staff say that while they were primed for a strike last week, Facebook/Twitter campaigns and the Future-proof Fairfax website with statements of support from the luminaries have been “far more effective”.
“Instead of losing money while striking, staff are being paid to campaign, using company resources. Brilliant idea.”
Another source noted the other reason behind the superb industrial tactics: “Why haven’t the beleaguered Age subs gone out on strike? Well apparently the only Age subs left are unionists. As one poor sub explained, they all suspect that Fairfax management is vehemently hoping they will strike so they get rid of the lot of them. So not striking is an act of defiance.”
“Take that Fairfax!” they added.
Meanwhile, it seems Fairfax management have come up with a savvy brainwave for those caught up in a career transition, with HR Director Gary Seppings tapping something called “Directioneering” to guide redundant career choices:
Dear colleagues
We have arranged for representatives from our career advice provider, Directioneering, to conduct 45 minute individual career coaching sessions (please refer to the attached for more detail).
The sessions will be conducted in meeting room 5.33 on level 5 of Media House.
Times are available on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week between 12 noon and 6:30 pm.
To make a booking, please contact HR Administrator, Susan Ung, at sung@theage.com.au or on ext 2524.
Regards
Gary Seppings
HR Director
17 May 21:00
Welcome to Directioneering. You are being offered the opportunity to sign up for an individual 45 minute career coaching session as part of the current organisational changes occurring at Fairfax.
Directioneering is an organisation that specialises in careers. Our objective is to help individuals continue and expand their careers. In order to do this we help individuals to evaluate their careers, define their career options and identify the most suitable next career step. We then assist individuals to attain the right role that is both satisfying and motivating.
For those interested in booking in for an initial 45 minute career coaching session, there are a number of topic areas that we can cover with you and which may include but are not limited to:
- Review of your career to date and discussion around current available jobs at Fairfax
- Current job fit
- Ideal internal and external future opportunities
- Initial resume review and feedback
- Initial advise on starting your own business
- Professional brand management
- Research and advise on networking plans and targets
You may like to learn more about our services from our website at: https://www.facebook.com/l/44bf5q4JHmvdBDfpg0DCehsl6MQ/www.directioneering.com
We look forward to meeting you over the coming weeks.
Yours sincerely,
Sandra Foggiato
Director – Client Relations
Any sub-editor, worthy of the title, would take one look at a piece of copy with the word “Directioneering” in it and……..
(a) Wet themselves laughing.
(b) Publicly crucify the author.
(c) Spike it immediately.
(d) All of the above.
I rang up the Age newspaper about 10 years ago in regards to the AWL laws brought in by the Howard Goverment in regards to how I lost my job. I am sorry to say that No gave a stuff that’s impression I got. I have been on a roller coaster of employment unemployment for the last 10 years. Allot of things have suffered. That’s it you just get use to it. I feel sory for you guys I hope you can navigate your way through it all. What a classic though a 45 minute individual career council coaching session. Yeh! Right Mate thanks for all the fish. Well at least it’s a individual one. We got a bulk one 10 of us in a room at a time. My heart goes out to guys in fact it dose to all the people who loose their jobs because of these AWL thanks John.
I notice that today The Age had identified a former PM called Ben Chiffley.
Noel Turnbull
Directioneering obviously needs subs, if the following is anything to go by. Apparently, they offer: “Initial advise [sic] on starting your own business” and “Research and advise [sic] on networking plans and targets” (see above).
Newspaper, luthier or shoemaker – spend decades pitching ‘quality’ as your unique point of difference, then take from the production line the main mechanism that ensures that quality, and the brand is tarnished.
Fairfax management would seem to not understand that the role of subs in ensuring their key point of difference goes well beyond inserting the soft returns and pulling apostrophes out of plurals.
Their mentoring role is way undervalued in all this, as perhaps it always has been.
I’d encourage confessional postings in this campaign. All journalists have them: anecdotes where that mentoring has either sharpened or indeed saved the story (…and colon or semi colon back there?). What price the defamation payouts without the in-house subs desk? Is this factored into Fairfax budget forecasts?
A contribution to the confessionals (though from another organisation): picture several occasions where ancient wordsmith patiently (though not always) steers the young police reporter right on active voice versus passive for a tight, well-crafted four pars where before there had been seven. Not hugely potent an example – no law suits averted – but ‘quality’ grows from that culture.
‘Media House’ – the Starship Enterprise at the end of Collins St – is doomed to become ‘Mediocre House’ without its Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi characters guiding its Jedi Knights.
(Gruff sub with wry grin would about now pull this rambling tub thump back to three lines without it losing a beat.)