Staff have planned an “assault on the Fairfax board” at the SMH stop work meeting in Sydney this morning, SMH journalist
and Federal President of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance,
Alan Kennedy told Crikey. “It’s rape and pillage on the 19th
floor,” said Kennedy.

Fairfax held stop work meetings yesterday and this morning
over plans to cut
up to 7.5 per cent of its editorial staff. Staff who were members of
the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) met in Sydney,
Canberra and
Melbourne to discuss the redundancies. SMH staff returned to work at
approximately 11am this morning and are planning another stop work next
Wednesday.

At the Sydney meeting staff “resolved to
crank up Friends of Fairfax” again and planned a ” full out
assault on the board to expose them as people with no media experience who are plundering
the joint,” said Kennedy.

“We will be
attending the annual general meeting, approaching
fund managers to see if they will vote against remuneration packages and will protest outside shareholder meetings.”

“We wonder
at the state of corporate governance when people sit on their hands and do
nothing,” says Kennedy. “And people are furious because there’s no forward plan.”

Colleagues
at The Age returned to work after a two-hour
meeting yesterday, after passing a substantial motion that was highly
critical of management, particularly of the payouts to former CEO Fred
Hilmer and
others, and bonuses paid to senior managers.