Staff at Nine Entertainment have passed a motion of no confidence in CEO Mike Sneesby and the Board following Friday’s announcement that the company will be cutting “around 200 jobs.”
Members of Nine’s publishing arm – which includes The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, WAtoday, and the Brisbane Times – met with officials from the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance on Friday afternoon.
“This motion was passed due to a lack of progress in the current enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations and because of the job cuts that have been announced,” a statement reads.
“We consider the announcement of the job cuts during negotiations particularly poor and question whether the unionised part of the workforce at Nine has particularly been targeted.”
The statement also points out that “we express our dismay that senior editors appear to have been kept in the dark until the last moment about the planned job cuts, despite the end of Meta funding being known for months.”
Following the announcement, Sneesby has reportedly flown to Greece for a week-long family holiday.
The reason given for Friday’s job cuts was to “offset the loss of revenue from the Meta deal and challenges in the advertising market,” with Sneesby saying at the time that “In order for us to be able to keep investing in digital growth opportunities across Nine, we must continue to responsibly manage costs through the cycle.”
The news comes less than a month before the Paris Olympics kick-off.
The job cuts at Nine follow major rounds of redundancies at Seven and News Corp.
At Seven, the announcement of a new operating model came alongside major names exiting the business – including chief revenue officer, Kurt Burnette, chief marketing officer, Melissa Hopkins, and head of sport and managing director of Seven Melbourne, Lewis Martin.
News Corp’s executive chairman Michael Miller told the National Press Club that News Corp’s ongoing restructuring is to ensure the business “rightsize[s] through the advertising downturn to be in a position for growth.”
High-profile exits at News Corp include news.com.au’s editor-in-chief, Lisa Muxworthy, and Editorial Innovation Centre’s group director, John McGourty.
MEAA media acting director Michelle Rae said the union acknowledged the cuts were in part a result of Meta’s decision not to renew deals under the News Media Bargaining Code, but urged Nine, Seven, and News Corp to look elsewhere for savings.
“Any cuts to editorial will mean reduced coverage of a range of matters and result in a less informed Australian public,” she said.
“They bring into question how committed Nine, Seven and News Corp are to quality, public interest journalism.”
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Top image: Mike Sneesby