ABC UNIONS CONDEMN TARGETING OF STAFF

Unions representing ABC staff have hit out at moves by management to target staff and rush to forced redundancies.

Members of the Community and Public Sector Union and the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance today voted up the motion condemning both the Federal Government and the ABC for the large-scale cuts.

At meetings in Sydney and Melbourne, hundreds of members still reeling from the announcement earlier this week of cuts to programs and up to 400 jobs voted on a motion that:

• Condemned the government’s cuts to the ABC
• Condemned ABC management’s “decision to make savings ahead of the Governments cuts schedule, and to target staff for redundancies to achieve these cuts”.
• Called on ABC management to genuinely consult with ABC employees about how it will go about making savings.
•  Called on the ABC to “exercise their discretion under the terms of the agreement” and open this round of redundancies up to all staff, and to redeploy qualified, committed staff who wish to stay with the ABC into those roles.
• Reject management’s “skills matrix” and refuse to participate in the “duplicitous process”.
• Take any and all steps necessary to ensure a fair redundancy process

CPSU National President Michael Tull said: “Members are very concerned about the way the ABC is going about making these cuts. They want to know why the ABC is trying to make all of the cuts immediately, instead of applying the staggered schedule of cuts set by the Government.”

MEAA Federal Secretary Christopher Warren said: "ABC management's approach continues to be one of secrecy and non-consultation which is angering people who want to know whether they will have a job after Christmas. Management has adopted a bizarre approach to identifying jobs to be lost that targets individual employees. The smart approach would be to offer voluntary redundancy that allows those who want to leave to go and those who want to stay to be plan how the work will be done with fewer staff. Trying to reverse engineer such massive job and funding cuts is nonsensical and foolish."