Power to the printers as Fairfax keeps award

Rural newspaper printers win industrial dispute after weeks of striking as Fairfax agrees to maintain working conditions.

Fairfax Media will keep the original regional dailies award until 2012. It includes a 3.25 per cent pay increase, with uncapped redundancy provisions.

Action began in February this year after news that new printers at daily regional papers would enter the recently created Graphic Arts award at level 5 or 6. According to Steve Vine of the NSW Print Division of the AMWU, this would result in a wage reduction of around $100 a week.

“There’s no doubt Fairfax/Rural Press want to lower wages; they want to introduce cheaper labour,” he said.

Stoppages ranging from two hours to half a day helped get the workers’ message across. While no newspapers were delayed in the process, national secretary of the AMWU print division, Lorraine Cassin, told Print21 that the actions were highly effective.

“We would have liked to have got this response out of Fairfax prior to members engaging in industrial action, but that’s what they had to do to get the action they were hoping for,” she said.

For Louise Brown, graphic designer at The Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga, the 14 hours of stop-work which her and fellow staff took part in has paid off.

“We were fighting to maintain the award and are happy we’ve been able to do that,” she said. “The money isn’t fantastic but we weren’t in it for the money; the main concern was to maintain our award and reduce the likelihood of restructuring and redundancies.”

Fairfax did not return calls.