Sue Bolton, Melbourne

On February 3, John Fairfax Holdings suddenly announced the closure of its printing operations at Spencer St in the city, cutting 66 production workers’ jobs. Fairfax owns the Melbourne Age, the Australian Financial Review and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Steve Rogers, an organiser for the printing division of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, told Green Left Weekly that the dispute began in 2001 when Fairfax decided to set up a new Age print facility at Tullamarine. It intended to sack the existing Spencer St workforce and employ new workers at Tullamarine.

After a big fight, the union won and Spencer St employees were transferred to the new facility. The Spencer St site remained open and the printing press was expanded to duplicate the new press at Tullamarine, in case any problems arose.

The union was skeptical about the job security of the workers who elected to remain at Spencer Street. However, it won a commitment from the company that there would be no forced redundancies for the term of the three-year enterprise bargaining agreement.

“Now, half-way through that agreement, they’ve turned around and told the workers at Spencer St that they’ll be terminated in five weeks’ time,” said Rogers.

“There are 64 printers left. Some of the workers have been there 30 years. When an organisation as big as this rats on a deal that we thought was rock solid, then it’s a pretty sad day.

“We’ve got the same commitment for the clerical people at Spencer Street and for the production people at Tullamarine that there will be no forced redundancies for the life of the agreement. That’s a really big thing for a worker, that even if something goes to shit in the workplace, the employer has to find you some other employment that will tide you over while you look for another job.”

Rogers pointed out that even though Fairfax wants to close the Spencer Street site, the work will still exist. The company intends to sub-contract it out to other printers.

On February 5, a mass meeting of Spencer Street and Tullamarine workers voted to take 48-hour strike action. The latter have had an ongoing dispute with management over under-staffing.

According to Rogers, clerical staff have expressed their support for the printers, along with other unions at the sites, including the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Electrical Trades Union. “We’ve also got the support of other print shops that say they won’t be doing the work”, said Rogers. Workers for the Fairfax press in Sydney have passed similar resolutions.

“We’ve supported the journalists’ picket lines before. They’re also supporting us in this dispute and won’t be doing any of our work. That includes pre-press work while we’re off the job”, said Rogers.

The initial 48-hour strike forced Fairfax to negotiate. The company is claiming a $5.5 million loss on the February 6 Age. That issue of the paper was half its usual size and did not include any of the regular inserts, slashing the income from advertising. According to Rogers, the inserts weren’t printed because management couldn’t operate any of the equipment.

After failing to stop the strike in the Federal Court and the Industrial Relations Commission, the company was desperate for the workers to produce the Weekend Age. However this wasn’t possible, as the next mass meeting wasn’t due until February 7.

Rogers described the state of the campaign as “round one to the AMWU and nothing to Fairfax. We’ve managed to give them a good belting and they can see they have to talk to us seriously and make some concessions.”

From Green Left Weekly, February 11, 2004.
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