Southland Times journalists strike

Southland Times journalists are on strike to protest stalled collective contract talks. (story updated here)

Sources say the Times’ editorial floor is this morning staffed by non-unionised managers, a junior reporter and an intern.

Journalists’ union delegate Evan Harding told Southern Squall his members wanted a 2% wage increase but that the Australian-owned newspaper wouldn’t budge on a 0% wage freeze offer.

Union hardman: Southland Times EPMU delegate Evan Harding (Squall photo)

“And then, two weeks ago we read that Fairfax had given failed chief executive David Kirk a AU$4m golden handshake,” Mr Harding said.

“[Some in] Fairfax had publicly said this man had failed, and here it was effectively saying that someone who failed was worth more than the workers at the coalface.

“It’s been deflating, to say the least, for staff.”

Mr Harding said the Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union had 31 members at the Southland Times. He understood 30 had not turned up to work today.

The strike couldn’t have come at a worse time for the newspaper which will now have to stretch scarce resources to cover some of the biggest stories of the year.

The Burt Munro Challenge has started and Deputy Prime Minister Bill English is due to open the long-awaited Gore Events Centre.

It appears the strike has also left Queenstown – a daily news battleground – open for the Otago Daily Times.

Mr Harding said Fairfax would struggle to attract journalists to Invercargill as long as pay and conditions lagged behind other mastheads.

The newspaper was the only Fairfax daily not to offer weekend or overtime rates: Fairfax needed to “get real”, if only to demonstrate it was committed to encouraging quality journalism.

“It’s worth noting that Fairfax has made another strong profit, admittedly not as strong as other years, and our own newspaper keeps running stories with economists saying we’re coming out of the recession.

“Why should we roll over and over and accept a wage freeze.”

 We’ll update this story as it develops: afternoon update here.

Fairfactor: Striking journalists make their point outside the Southland Times building this afternoon (Squall photo)

Oh, and by now you’re probably wondering why we care about a strike at a newspaper. We’ll drip-feed our reasons as they occur to us, but here’s some for a start:

Quality journalism needs quality journalists. We think that’s a hard, high ideal when journalists (that’s low-glamour, print journalists)  are treated shabbily.

Read this (the Big New Zealand Journalism Survey) about what journalists think about their job and – crucially – declining resources. It’s a real issue for New Zealand journalism and the quality of work we read.

A well-supported media is in all our interests. Our media shouldn’t simply be a cash cow for faceless investors.

(We also reckon a journalists strike must be the loneliest industrial action you can have: if a tree falls and there’s no one to write about it, did it make a sound…?)