ABC journalists and broadcasters will strike today from 11am.
The strike will last for 24 hours, putting many live radio programs off air until tomorrow.
Automated music will air on music networks while live programs such as Radio National Breakfast, AM, the World Today and PM will be replaced by BBC programming and repeats.
ABC staff rejected management’s offer of a 10% total pay rise over three years – 3.5% in the first year and 3.25% in the two years after.
Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) Chief Executive, Erin Madeley, said the decision came after months of negotiations with ABC management.
ABC staff are represented by two unions, journalists are covered by the MEAA while presenters, producers, operators and admin staff are covered by the public service union CPSU. Both unions voted in the strike ballot. Managers are not represented by either union.
Sixty per cent of MEAA staff who participated in the vote said “No” to the enterprise agreement offer.
The ABC has roughly 4,500 staff and 75.6 per cent voted on the offer. Staff were told the tally was 395 votes short of the number required for the offer to be accepted.
Disruptions are “inevitable” unless ABC puts on the table a “fair offer”, said Jocelyn Gammie of the non-journalists’ CPSU.
ABC staff have been advised to “avoid making statements that could be interpreted as compromising impartiality on future matters you may be asked to report on.” Where presenters have commented on the strike they have simply reminded listeners that they will not be on air over the next 24 hours. Emergency broadcasting is exempt from the strike.
The level of local programming on ABC local and regional stations will vary by market, with some services retaining more local content than others, depending on who goes on strike and who doesn’t. Managers are presenting programs on some stations. While this is the first time MEAA journalists have gone on strike in 20 years, CPSU members did go on strike more recently over pay and conditions.
ABC managing director Hugh Marks believes the pay offer is “both sustainable and financially responsible” and that “no-one has provided any evidence to suggest ABC staff are paid less than industry standards.”
Marks told Hamish McDonald on ABC 702 Sydney, 90 minutes before the strike:
“It’s really unfortunate that we’ve got to this point… We will do our best to ensure that the audiences have got access to information. We’ll be using BBC content where that’s appropriate and available to us. So, we will be maintaining services, but they won’t be of the standard that I would like to be on air.”
Speaking about the pay negotiations he said:
“We started [negotiating] nine months ago. Through that process ABC management have continued to make a number of concessions on the record, to the unions as part of those discussions. We’ve also felt it really important that we can communicate directly to staff, remembering that only about a third of our workforce is unionised, two thirds are not…
“We’ve made a number of progressions until Friday. The union had not changed their position from their original position. That’s nine months later. The offer that came in on Friday was, frankly, just a slight deviation on what their previous position was… I’m not going to continue to negotiate against ourselves, and not have the other side of the equation show a willingness and an integrity to do that on an honest and direct basis.
“I think the offer that we’ve made to staff is fair and reasonable. I keep getting told that it’s below inflation, but it’s not. When you think about the offer at 3.5% in the 1st year, and you add a $1000 bonus on top of that, for the average worker on an EA, that amounts to about 4.4 something percent a year. So that is above inflation. If you think about the subsequent years, 3.25 percent… That offer is set at a level above what the reserve banks targeted inflation rate is, which is between 2 and 3%. So as far as I can tell, the offer is set at a level that is above inflation.”
On the issue of short term contracts, Marks said:
“The ABC average ABC staff member has a 10.5 year tenure. That’s 3 times the economy wide average.
“We hear about using the fixed term contracts, less than 10% of our staff are on fixed term contracts. And of those, a number obviously are there for maternity leave cover, for long service leave cover, for sick leave cover, whatever it is. There are many legitimate reasons why people might be on a contract… so, this notion that we have insecure work practices is also not factually accurate.”
When Macdonald put to Marks that ‘all of the people making this program today are on short term contracts,’ he replied:
“The law says that if you renew your contract more than one time, we’re obliged now to put you on a permanent contract. And we will… So, there is not an increase in use of fixed term contracts in the ABC. It will decrease as we comply with those provisions of the law.”
On the subject of ‘band progression,’ which is about progressing to higher salary levels over time, Marks said:
“I think the union’s position on that is, they want this thing called automatic progression, which basically means that you should progress at the ABC based on your tenure at the ABC.
“My position is, I actually want people to progress. I want people to be successful. I want to reward them if their performance is exceptional. And I really want to encourage that sort of culture across the organisation. But I don’t want to do that just based on tenure. I want to do that based on people’s contribution to the ABC, and their value to performing services for the audience…
“I’ve come from non-unionized workforces, where you see progression happen a lot more based on merit and based a lot more on performance. The way that the Enterprise agreement here works, it does put you into a certain cohort and you get determined with that cohort. I think that’s the thing that needs to change.”
Some ABC staff have set an auto reply on their emails today saying:
I’ll likely be a little slow to reply to this email, because my ABC colleagues and I are participating in industrial action.
I love working for the ABC because I believe in independent broadcasting and quality journalism in regional Australia. I work extremely hard to tell those stories, create great content and celebrate Australian music.
But my colleagues and I are struggling to continue that work, because our jobs are insecure and unsustainable.
We’re taking industrial action today to call on ABC management to provide us with an offer in Enterprise Bargaining that provides quality jobs, so we can deliver the quality news and content Australians rely on