Fairfax update…

Paul Robinson:

Feeling at the place… have you been heard??

Crikey reporter Sophie Black writes:

Staff have planned an
“assault on the Fairfax board” at the SMH stop work meeting in Sydney
this morning, SMH journalist and Federal President of the Media,
Entertainment & Arts Alliance, Alan Kennedy told Crikey. “It’s rape and
pillage on the 19th floor,” said Kennedy.

Fairfax held stop work meetings
yesterday and this morning over plans to cut up to 7.5 per cent of its editorial
staff. Staff who were members of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance
(MEAA) met in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne to discuss the redundancies.
SMH staff returned to work at approximately 11am this morning and are
planning another stop work next Wednesday.

At the Sydney meeting staff
“resolved to crank up Friends of Fairfax” again and planned a ” full out assault
on the board to expose them as people with no media experience who are
plundering the joint,” said Kennedy.

“We will be attending the annual
general meeting, approaching fund managers to see if they will vote against
remuneration packages and will protest outside shareholder meetings.”

“We
wonder at the state of corporate governance when people sit on their hands and
do nothing,” says Kennedy. “And people are furious because there’s no forward
plan.”

Colleagues at The Age returned to work after a two-hour
meeting yesterday, after passing a substantial motion that was highly critical
of management, particularly of the payouts to former CEO Fred Hilmer and others,
and bonuses paid to senior managers.