When the Cheshire emerges...

Troubles have been brewing (in the past month particularly) over proposed reshuffling of resources throughout Fairfax Regional Media, the company I am employed under which predominantly covers the eastern states.

They have proposed large 'sub hubs', where sub-editors for a large number of papers within one area would work in a large workspace. Dubbo has a small example of this, where our office also sub-edits the papers for smaller towns in NSW's western region including Nyngan, Cobar and Lightning Ridge.

About a fortnight ago, jobs at Launceston and Albury were cut while Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) union representatives held a meeting with chief executive Allan Browne as part of a consultation process. Literally during discussions.

But yesterday the news emerged that the Illawarra Mercury in Wollongong, Newcastle Herald and seven associated community titles would have their sub-editing staff cut (that's 66 positions) to make room for offshore production. In New Zealand. After we'd been told there wouldn't be transferring between countries.

Today at my office we held a stop-work meeting where a resolution sent through by the MEAA was read out and discussed. We unanimously voted in agreeance with their statement, namely that we are "angered and dismayed" at the proposals.

We are still in the dark about what happens from here. Dubbo is already technically a sub hub, yes. But it came to me very quickly that no job is safe, and what they're doing is not right. What is more worrying that further action is now being taken - I found out as I was writing this that journalists from all the Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and Wollongong are on strike from now until Friday morning. Read the situation in a nutshell here.

Rival News Limited also published this story about predictions for further losses.

As a union member and (journalist/)sub-editor, it is important that word gets out there of the mess being made all to save a few dollars. Toying with livelihoods is not the way to go guys.