Journalists at Nine have halted their strike action after coming to a last-minute agreement.
Nine’s journalists were set to strike Thursday and Friday this week to push for better pay. Hundreds of journalists were set to close their laptops and cease typing in protest.
The strike was to commence after the #FairShareNine made the rounds on Twitter, with journalists arguing they deserved a bigger cut of Nine’s record profits.
https://twitter.com/nicilind/status/1566958918756335620
However, their strike plans have come to a screaming halt because on Monday Nine swooped in with a last-minute offer.
Nine’s MD of publishing, James Chessell, sent a staff memo with the offer and added: “Don’t make this job more difficult and therefore put future pay deals at more risk by taking unnecessary industrial action. This is a final offer.”
The improved offer meant a Grade 1 journalist would be on a package of $73,113 next year. A Grade 5 journalist would go from a minimum current package of $99,706 to $106,837 per year by the expiry of the EBA.
Plus, this proposed EBA would result in 49.8 per cent of journalists earning more than $125k per year in total at the expiry of the agreement.
The offer was enough to sweeten the deal and stop a mass walkout.
Chessell told B&T, “I’m pleased we’ve been able to reach an in-principle agreement with staff that reflects their hard work and ensures stability for the mastheads. It means we will be able to focus even more on producing high-quality, public interest journalism for our valued readers and subscribers.”
