FED: ABC staff to hold national stopwork meeting tomorrow

AAP General News (Australia)
12-04-2000
FED: ABC staff to hold national stopwork meeting tomorrow

By Natalie Davison, Industrial Reporter

SYDNEY, Dec 4 AAP - Staff at the ABC will decide whether to strike over budget and
job cuts at unauthorised stop-work meetings across Australia tomorrow.

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) federal officer Cheryl Winstanley said
ABC union delegates decided during a national phone hook-up today to hold unauthorised
staff meetings tomorrow.

Ms Winstanley said the ABC's 4,000 staff members would be asked to vote on several
recommendations, including a proposal for a 24-hour strike.

The strike option came after a staff delegation met with managing director Jonathan
Shier this morning to ask about budget and staff cuts and the future direction of the
ABC.

"Staff will be asked to consider taking industrial action in protest at Mr Shier's
refusal to provide detailed information about budget cuts," she said.

Staff last week moved a motion of no-confidence in Mr Shier.

That came as ABC management announced plans to end the popular Quantum program and
axe ABC's science unit.

Ms Winstanley said the meeting would start at noon and staff could vote to strike immediately
after the stopwork meeting.

Midday news and radio programs are expected to be disrupted during the stopwork.

Earlier today some high-profile ABC staff held a media conference to highlight their
concerns about the direction of the public programmer under Mr Shier's management.

Television current affairs reporter Quentin Dempster said the changes within the science
unit had created a wave of uncertainty among all staff.

"We are gravely concerned about specialist programming within the ABC and about our
creative independence as the public broadcaster," he said.

"We are concerned now because the structure that the managing director has established
might lead to commercialisation, the full-scale commercialisation of the ABC."

7.30 Report presenter Kerry O'Brien predicted budget cuts of $8 million in operating
budget within the next six months would result in about 100 job losses.

Radio National's Tom Morton said Mr Shier would today give no commitment about maintaining
existing staffing levels and made it clear that management intended to pursue cuts in
all areas.

"We have heard what is going to happen with the science unit, it was clearly indicated
in today's meeting that the same was going to happen with the other specialist programs
units within the ABC, including radio," he said.

But in a statement today, Mr Shier said he had taken the staff comments seriously.

He said the ABC was committed to maintaining programs and denied staff claims the broadcaster
was being commercialised or was obsessed with new media.

"I have stated publicly and in front of (the) Senate Estimates Committee that the ABC
will not undertake activity that breaches its Charter or Act," Mr Shier said.

"Despite claims to the contrary, I have given repeated assurances that I am not interested
in earning money from advertising online."

Mr Shier said the fundamental difficulty facing the ABC was the level of government
funding which had forced the ABC board to make "painful decisions".

"Our budget has remained static, yet costs are rising," he said.

Mr Shier said funding for all ABC radio and television programs was inadequate.

And he said he would make a submission to the ABC board meeting on Wednesday to ask
the government for more funding.

AAP nd/sb/gmw

KEYWORD: ABC NIGHTLEAD

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