Journalists at 2 of Australia’s Biggest Papers Strike Over Job Cuts
By JACQUELINE WILLIAMSMAY 3, 2017
SYDNEY, Australia — Staff members at The Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age, among the most powerful voices in the Australian news media, began a weeklong strike on Wednesday over job cuts at Fairfax Media.
On Wednesday morning, the company sent an email to staff members saying it would cut 125 full-time positions at The Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age in Melbourne, with cuts also expected at The Australian Financial Review.
It’s death by a thousand cuts." He added, "We find it really frustrating
that after years and years of cuts, still the organization hasn’t been able to come up with a solution which doesn’t require cutting the very thing that we do, which is producing good-quality journalism." An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed one Fairfax newspaper among those whose workers went on strike.
In his email to staff members on Wednesday, Sean Aylmer, the editorial director at Fairfax Media, said
that all editorial sections could be affected but that some jobs would be hit especially hard.
Bachelard said that The history of these strikes —
and we’ve done a number over the years as the cuts have progressively gotten worse — is that management is still able to put out a newspaper,
Andrew Hornery, a senior journalist who has worked for The Sydney Morning Herald for 22 years
and writes the Private Sydney column, stood outside his newsroom with co-workers and said: "It’s a great shame what’s happening.