Fairfax result partly due to the workers

Fairfax result partly due to the workers

Workers at Fairfax newspapers are congratulating their employer on making a record profit.

Australian-based John Fairfax Holdings Ltd, whose New Zealand interests include the Dominion-Post, Waikato Times, The Press and Sunday Star-Times newspapers, today announced profits of $A237 million, up more than 23 per cent on the previous year.

The company attributed its record result to “exceptional performance” by its New Zealand titles.

Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union national secretary Andrew Little said that workers at Fairfax papers in New Zealand were delighted with the news.

“We congratulate Fairfax on an excellent result,” he said, “but ask that the company acknowledges that its success is at least in part due to the efforts of journalists, printers and other workers at those New Zealand newspapers.”

Workers at five Fairfax community newspapers in Wellington – the Hutt News, the Upper Hutt Leader, the Kapi-Mana News, the Kapiti Observer and the Wellingtonian (formerly Contact) were on strike today in protest over the company’s refusal to give them a five per cent pay rise. The company has offered them a 3.2 per cent rise.

Last week journalists and printers at the Waikato Times took industrial action in their pay dispute.

Mr Little said that it was unrealistic for the company to expect its workers to settle for less than the going rate when it could clearly afford to give them a fair pay rise.

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