Television New Zealand has breached its collective agreement with the E tū union when deciding on discontinuing programmes, the Employment Relations Authority has ruled.

It was announced in March that 68 staff members who work for news programmes Midday and Tonight, consumer justice programme Fair Go, current affairs programme Sunday, and the youth programme Re: and in-house video content production were affected by redundancy.

Last month, the company confirmed the axing of Fair Go and Sunday, along with its midday and late night news bulletins.

Yesterday, the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ordered the broadcaster to go into mediation with E tū union.

“The Authority finds that TVNZ has breached cl 10.1.1 of the collective agreement,” the ruling stated.

It said that if after mediation, matters were not resolved, an order would be made against TVNZ to comply with its collective agreement.

Executives, staff gave evidence
TVNZ executives and staff were among those giving evidence in an investigation meeting at the ERA in Auckland on Monday relating to the state broadcaster’s alleged breaches in its redundancy process.

E tū union took the case against TVNZ, arguing the company did not follow the consultation requirements under its collective agreement with its members.

E tū wants more of a role in the initial decision-making, which it said TVNZ was obliged to do under the collective agreement.

But TVNZ opposed the application, claiming there had been no breach and that the company had clearly communicated to staff and unions that redundancies would take place.

In a statement, TVNZ said: “We are disappointed by the decision today from the Employment Relations Authority. We will now take the time to consider the decision and our next steps”.

Staff still employed
E tū negotiator Michael Wood told RNZ Checkpoint yesterday that the determination was a very clear one and any redundancy notices that had been issued were therefore not valid.

Staff still continue to be employed during this mediation because “there has not been a legitimate process to result in their redundancies”, Wood said.

It had been a “botched process”, he said.

“If you have an agreement with someone that says you’re going to work through something in a particular way, you need to follow it and TVNZ did not follow it in this case and the ERA has affirmed that.”

It had been an incredibly disruptive time for stuff and they were “really happy about this outcome”, Wood said.

The ERA said the clause that TVNZ had breached was an uncommon provision, but Wood said the company signed off on it.

“We would like to meet as soon as we reasonably can.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Union members at the Australian public broadcaster ABC have today passed a vote of no confidence in managing director David Anderson for failing to defend the integrity of the ABC and its staff from outside attacks, reports the national media union.

The vote was passed overwhelmingly at a national online meeting attended by more than 200 members of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA), the union said in a statement.

Union members have called on Anderson to take immediate action to win back the confidence of staff following a series of incidents which have damaged the reputation of the ABC as a trusted and independent source of news.

The vote of ABC union staff rebuked Anderson, with one of the broadcaster’s most senior journalists, global affairs editor John Lyons, reported in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age as saying he was “embarrassed” by his employer, which he said had “shown pro-Israel bias” and was failing to protect staff against complaints.

This followed revelations of a series of emails by the so-called Lawyers for Israel lobby group alleged to be influential in the sacking of Lebanese Australian journalist Antoinette Lattouf for her criticism on social media of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza that has killed 25,000 people so far, mostly women and children.

Another pro-Israel WhatsApp lobbying the ABC.
It makes me sick in the stomach to see people celebrate my sacking.
It makes me sick in the stomach to see an alleged Ita Buttrose response saying I’m now gone.
It makes me worry about the ABC’s integrity https://t.co/6qTeU7f8Wz pic.twitter.com/L9Te8A1Ynx

— Antoinette Lattouf (@antoinette_news) January 22, 2024

Staff have put management on notice that if it does not begin to address the current crisis by next Monday, January 29, staff will consider further action.

The acting chief executive of MEAA, Adam Portelli, said staff had felt unsupported by the ABC’s senior management when they have been criticised or attacked from outside.

Message ‘clear and simple’
“The message from staff today is clear and simple: David Anderson must demonstrate that he will take the necessary steps to win back the confidence of staff and the trust of the Australian public,” he said.

“This is the result of a consistent pattern of behaviour by management when the ABC is under attack of buckling to outside pressure and leaving staff high and dry.

“Public trust in the ABC is being undermined. The organisation’s reputation for frank and fearless journalism is being damaged by management’s repeated lack of support for its staff when they are under attack from outside.

BREAKING NEWS:
Censorship Crisis at the ABC.

Senior ABC journalist accuses ABC of bowing to “a group of lawyers lobbying for a foreign power.”

👉 “The clue is in the name: ‘Lawyers for Israel’ thought that they could run a campaign to bully an ABC journalist out of her job —… pic.twitter.com/VbyFfGqpnB

— Peter Cronau (@PeterCronau) January 22, 2024

“Journalists at the ABC — particularly First Nations people, and people from culturally diverse backgrounds — increasingly don’t feel safe at work; and the progress that has been made in diversifying the ABC has gone backwards.

“Management needs to act quickly to win that confidence back by putting the integrity of the ABC’s journalism above the impact of pressure from politicians, unaccountable lobby groups and big business.”

The full motion passed by MEAA members at today’s meeting reads as follows:

MEAA members at the ABC have lost confidence in our managing director David Anderson. Our leaders have consistently failed to protect our ABC’s independence or protect staff when they are attacked. They have consistently refused to work collaboratively with staff to uphold the standards that the Australian public need and expect of their ABC.

Winning staff and public confidence back will require senior management:

• Backing journalism without fear or favour;
• Working collaboratively with unions to build a culturally informed process for supporting staff who face criticism and attack;
• Take urgent action on the lack of security and inequality that journalists of colour face;
• Working with unions to develop a clearer and fairer social media policy; and
• Upholding a transparent complaints process, in which journalists who are subject to complaints are informed and supported.

A further resolution passed unanimously by the meeting read:

MEAA members at the ABC will not continue to accept the failure of management to protect our colleagues and the public. If management does not work with us to urgently fix the ongoing crisis, ABC staff will take further action to take a stand for a safe, independent ABC.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) union is reconsidering its involvement in the Australian Press Council and has appealed to members to give feedback on this issue.

Vice-president media Karen Percy has appealed to delegates on a YouTube video to take part in this consultation.

“Members have raised concerns about the lack of financial transparency at the Press Council and rulings that are increasingly out of step with community expectations,” she said.

If the MEAA leaves, it needs to give four years notice “to end our contributions”, which last year were more than A$100,000.

“That four years gives us time to look at alternative regulatory options, and that’s in line with the MEAA submission to the Senate Inquiry into media diversity which proposes a single entity for self-regulation,” said Percy.

Meanwhile, the MEAA says in a recent statement on its website that Facebook’s recent “ham-fisted handling of its news sharing ban” in Australia – which initially blocked crucial community information and health and government information sites – had revealed the real dangers of an organisation that “abuses its dominant position” and “thumbs its nose at rules and regulations”.

Last month’s decision by Facebook to unilaterally ban news on hundreds of Australian pages was “the arrogant act of a company with too much power that thinks it is beyond the reach of any government”, the statement said.

Facebook was acting in retaliation to the proposed News Media Bargaining Code, which would force it and Google to compensate media outlets for content that until now has been published on their platforms for free.

While Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code was not a silver bullet to fix the problems within the news media, it was an important step to address the “blatant imbalance between the digital giants” and those who produced public interest news content.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz