ABC members around Australia, including those in Hobart, made a stand against racism on May 23 following attacks on their colleague Stan Grant.

Journalism is a cornerstone of any functioning liberal democracy, and essential to a thriving, connected society. Changing technologies, business models, ownership and funding arrangements and attacks on press freedom have threatened our capacity to provide accountable public interest journalism in recent years. Through all of this, MEAA members have held the line, and pushed back on the forces that undermine quality journalism and the quality jobs it demands.

Over the past year, MEAA journalists across the industry have worked together to build a growing, powerful union, and act for a sustainable industry that the public can have faith in.

Solidarity combats undercutting

United we bargain, divided we beg.

This year, working journalists have overcome tactics seeking to divide us, by building strength in numbers and fighting against undercutting.

MEAA members at Nine Publishing and Private Media called for management to agree to minimum rates, timely payment, kill fees and other key conditions for freelance contributors, as part of Enterprise Bargaining for in-house staff.

As staff at Nine went to industrial action, hundreds of freelancers who contribute to the mastheads resolved to stand with them, denying management the ability to easily source content during a potential strike.

This led to a stronger pay rise, automatic grade progression, commitment to diversity and more for in-house staff, and freelancers were able to collectively negotiate the first ever policy for minimum rates of pay and conditions for freelance contributors at Nine. Private Media are also negotiating a collective agreement with freelancers, after staff stood with them.

Overland Literary Journal became the first publication to sign the MEAA Freelance Journalists’ Charter of Rights in full, leading to increased pay and paid superannuation for members.

Solidarity across geographical divides has helped win outcomes too, with MEAA members at the ABC putting sustainable careers in regional areas front and centre of their Enterprise Agreement negotiations. With regional voices at the table, members united against the pay disparities and unfair double standards their colleagues faced. MEAA membership at ABC grew to over 1000 strong, and 90% of members overwhelmingly endorsed and took protected industrial action to win essential changes to build sustainable careers in both regional and metro areas.

Sustainable careers for good journalism

At many outlets, roles that were once performed by senior, experienced journalists have been cut and replaced by junior workers on lower rates of pay and insecure forms of employment, or not replaced at all.

At SBS, ABC, Nine, News Corp, AAP and elsewhere, MEAA members have improved access to pay and career progression through bargaining and fought back against cuts and unreasonably low-paid jobs every week.

Wage theft has become a prevalent problem and excessive hours continue to burn out media workers. Disputes with the ABC and Nine Publishing led to the retrieval of large sums in underpaid overtime, into the pockets of members.

Members continue to hold the line against casualisation and short-term contracts, which undermine security and members’ ability to plan for the future. Over the past year, MEAA has supported dozens of members in enforcing and advancing their rights to convert to ongoing employment.

Standing against racism

This year, MEAA members have been at the forefront of fighting for outlets to engage more journalists from diverse backgrounds and to build culturally safe and equal workplaces.

Members at the ABC went to protected action for, and won, an audit into gender and race pay gaps, so that inequalities can be found and addressed. Members also staged a walkout in support of Indigenous colleagues, including Stan Grant and others, who faced consistent racist attacks from the public and were not receiving enough support from management. This led to an investigation to specifically address these issues.

Members at AAP won cultural and ceremonial leave for First Nations and other diverse workers in their recent EA negotiations, a crucial step towards building a respectful and culturally safe workplace for staff from diverse backgrounds.

Following more than five years of campaigning, members at SBS won an end to structural inequality in their pay system. After decades of foreign language journalists reaching a pay ceiling three bands lower than their colleagues, all journalists and producers at SBS are now paid under one classification structure — regardless of the language they report the news in.

On September 6, 2022, journalists at WAtoday joined Nine Publishing colleagues around Australia for a day of action in pursuit of a fair enterprise bargaining agreement.

Ethical, accountable journalism

Members have won industry-wide recognition of the MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics, with employers agreeing to respect it at Nine, Guardian, AAP, Private Media, The Conversation, several ACM publications, and others. It also forms a central point of the Freelance Journalists’ Charter of Rights .

Despite this, Australian Community Media tried to remove their commitment to the Code of Ethics from the Ballarat Courier Enterprise Agreement. Members grew union density and stood together, alongside the Ballarat community, who signed a petition calling on management to support ethical journalism in their community.

As artificial intelligence technology rapidly advances, MEAA members have called for ethical and accountable practice in the use of new tools that could help journalists to deliver news and information to our communities more easily than ever.

Press freedom

There has been a disappointing lack of progress on press freedom concerns at home, despite the early optimism presented by a change of government in 2022.

Over recent years, Australia’s standing on world press rankings compiled by Reporters Without Borders has slid rapidly to 27th in 2023 from 19th in 2018. MEAA has urged the Albanese Government to implement a backlog of reforms including to national security laws, freedom of information, and defamation. MEAA Media Federal President Karen Percy directly raised these issues with Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus at a media round table in February.

The failure of state and territory jurisdictions to agree on a uniform approach to defamation law continues to be a problem, but in June MEAA welcomed the NSW Supreme Court decision in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case as an important affirmation of the role of journalism to investigate and report on serious matters of public interest. That decision has since been appealed.

Solidarity across borders

During the past 12 months, the Media Safety & Solidarity Fund has aided journalists from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Burma who have been forced to flee their home countries.

MEAA has worked with other media and journalism unions across the globe to assist them in their dealings with proposed international variations of Australia’s flawed Mandatory Bargaining Code regime. We have represented Australia through the International Federation of Journalists.

MEAA has continued to advocate for incarcerated Australian journalists Julian Assange and Cheng Lei. In April 2023, it was four years since the arrest of Assange in London.

The full 2022-23 MEAA annual report is available as a downloadable PDF here.