My MEAA Story: Emma Field

ABC regional journalist Emma Field was part of the delegate team that negotiated the latest enterprise bargaining agreement.

I career-changed into journalism after becoming totally bored working as a public servant in Canberra. I moved to Melbourne to study journalism, and when I landed my first job with the ‘Bible of the Bush’, Victorian agriculture newspaper The Weekly Times, I joined MEAA.

I worked in regional Victoria, first in Gippsland in the east of the state covering everything from cattle sales to a dysfunctional local hospital. In 2014 I started a series on foreign farm workers being underpaid and suffering terrible work and living conditions, which culminated in winning two Walkley Awards in 2015 and 2018.

These stories really showed me how many workers slipped through the net and how precarious their lives were, and the poor regulation of our industrial laws.

My series on the death of Pacific workers in Australia on government-managed labour programs also proved that without good oversights workers’ lives are at risk.

These stories strengthened my belief in standing together with my union comrades to fight for a better system that all workers deserve.

I took a step into being a more active MEAA member when I was part of the group of union women who launched Women in Media in Victoria. Then in 2021 I was elected to MEAA’s National Media Section and in 2022 was a MEAA delegate on ABC’s Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA).

Working on the EBA was a great learning experience. I was the first regionally based ABC staff member to take the message from regional staff directly to the boardroom.

It was also great to be part of a small MEAA delegate team who successfully formulated a strategy to build membership, and have the strength to fight for significant improvements for ABC staff in the new agreement.

We went to the brink of industrial action over this, and I proudly wore my MEAA shirt to the cattle yards on our day of action, designed as a show of strength to ABC management during negotiations.

In the EBA we won a good pay rise, plus a new system where staff could progress through pay levels, after many were stuck on the same level for years, plus we won a commitment to an audit of the gender and racial pay gap, and transparency around pay bands, salaries and employment status to ensure pay parity.

I’m really proud that we now have well over 1000 ABC MEAA members, almost doubling 2020 membership, and are the largest union represented at the public broadcaster. And more importantly regional staff feel like they are being listened to and the union is fighting for them.

And if staff are ever unsure about joining the union it’s nice to remind them of our recent wins because we stood together.

And also that MEAA stands up for our industry on the larger issues for journalists such as press freedom, sets the standard for media through our code of ethics, fights for freelancers and proudly stands up for all creative industries.