ABC calls for umpire’s help as it faces first strike in 20 years

The ABC has appealed to the industrial umpire to end a months-long dispute over pay as managing director Hugh Marks stares down the first strike at the broadcaster in 20 years and dismisses job security concerns as at odds with the national broadcaster’s long average staff tenure.

The ABC wants the Fair Work Commission to intervene as thousands of journalists and professional staff prepare to walk off the job for 24 hours on Wednesday morning. The ABC says the pay bargaining has become intractable.

Sixty per cent of the broadcaster’s staff who returned ballots voted against the ABC’s latest pay offer, which included a 10 per cent pay rise over three years and a $1000 signing bonus. A ballot to take up the ABC’s offer failed by 395 votes, triggering the strike action.

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance chief executive Erin Madeley congratulated members on clearing the way for the strike, but she said they “should never have been pushed to this point”.

Marks told this masthead the protracted negotiations had been an “unsatisfactory process” that will now lead to “significant disruption” this week when staff walk off the job.

Marks said the unions’ proposals were “so far out of what is possible”, referencing their demand for 5.5 per cent annual pay rises and automatic promotions up the pay scale. The MEAA returned with a new offer on Monday, proposing pay rises of 4.5 per cent each year for the three-year cycle.

With improved job security also a key point of contention, Marks said the ABC was “clearly not a place of insecure work practice”.

“More than 90 per cent of our staff are on long-term contracts. We’ve got an average tenure of 10 and a half years […] So I disregard that claim,” Marks said.

A walk-out of several thousand journalists and staff would hurt online, TV and live radio programming on Wednesday and Thursday morning, Marks said. The ABC was likely to respond with re-runs and shows purchased from other sources.

But with no clear sign of an outcome satisfying both sides, Marks wants to take the dispute to the industrial umpire to “try and get some sort of independent assessment”.

The Fair Work Commission can step in to effectively arbitrate pay bargaining processes that have got stuck, but it must be convinced that the parties cannot work out an outcome on their own.

Marks said having the commission involved could take months.

There are two unions representing ABC staff , the MEAA and the Community and Public Sector Union. Three-quarters of staff, 75.6 per cent, voted on the pay offer, meaning more than 3000 employees returned their ballots.

The last major strike at the ABC was in 2006, also over a pay dispute. That caused severe disruptions to its broadcast operations. Presenters will begin informing audiences of the planned action from 11am on Tuesday.

A similar 24-hour strike was called off in early 2023 after then-managing director David Anderson tabled an improved 11 per cent pay offer at the last moment, alongside a $1500 cash bonus.

The ABC’s latest offer includes 3.5 per cent, 3.25 per cent and 3.25 per cent pay rises across three years. The offer also includes 16 weeks of parental leave for supporting partners and increased sick and compassionate leave.

The current offer is below the most recent inflation figure of 3.8 per cent, as of January. Marks said it was not his job to respond to inflation figures, but to operate within the ABC’s fixed funding terms.

“Inflation is not my job as the MD of the ABC to be able to address,” he said. “Our funding, I think goes up on average of 2.7 or 2.8% a year. If I allow my costs to increase significantly faster than that, I will be cutting cost content and services.”

The ABC receives more than $1.1 billion from the government each year, though some of that is tied to specific expenses.

CPSU ABC section secretary Jocelyn Gammie said members “do not vote for strike action lightly”, and the last thing they wanted to do was inconvenience loyal audiences. But she said disruptions were inevitable without a “fair” offer.

“The fact that so many union members have taken this step demonstrates how frustrated they are at this process,” Gammie said.

“ABC staff work hard to provide high-quality services for the Australian community. They deserve to be treated with respect and that means a decent pay offer and fair agreement.”

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