Herald journalists return to work
Protest ... Herald journalists outside Fairfax headquarters during today's industrial action.
Photo: AP
Fairfax journalists in Sydney returned to work today after going out on strike yesterday afternoon.
Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald journalists walked out over plans to axe 35 production jobs as part of a major restructure of the mastheads.
In the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) today, Commissioner Gregory Harrison issued an order preventing further industrial action over the next three months instead of until June 2008 as Fairfax had proposed.
Mr Harrison said the order would stand until August 10, 2007.
He also directed the two sides to resume meaningful talks.
The company officials met the Fairfax House Committee of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance at Fairfax headquarters in Sydney this evening. Talks went on for more than two hours and will resume tomorrow.
Senior Sydney Morning Herald journalist and Fairfax house committee spokesman Gerard Noonan said staff returned to work after they met at 1pm and discussed the commission's decision and their course of action.
"The company has agreed to discussions this afternoon at 4pm," Mr Noonan said.
"That hasn't proved very useful up to now but maybe the fact
that we've taken industrial action might make them sit up and take
some more notice because people are really angry about this on a
range of issues."
Mr Noonan said he hoped for a resolution to the dispute, but talks
last Friday had not been productive.
Fairfax Media corporate affairs director, Bruce Wolpe, said: "The
company is pleased that staff have returned to work.
"There are still serious issues to discuss and we will do so."
More than 100 Fairfax employees packed into the commission
courtroom before today's order was made.
Earlier today, the staff picketed Fairfax's Sydney
headquarters.
Fairfax Media chief David Kirk, who earlier declared the strike
illegal, said he was pleased staff had returned to work.
"I'm looking forward to seeing a great paper tomorrow," he told
reporters.
Mr Kirk rejected suggestions the quality of the mastheads would
suffer with fewer staff and said planned changes would mean greater
efficiency and higher quality newspapers.
There were no plans to merge editorial staff at the Canberra
offices of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, he
said.
AAP and smh.com.au
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