It’s A Sack-Tastic Voyage At Fairfax!

As we mentioned yesterday, Fairfax staff are striking in Sydney, Melbourne, Illawarra and Newcastle in protest of Fairfax’s proposed 550 job cuts (not to mention other issues like freelance agreements and pay rates), the first and highest profile of which was Age editor-in-chief Andrew Jaspan. Well, it seems if there’s something Fairfax big wigs like even less than letting people keep their jobs, it’s letting striking people keep their jobs!

Radio broadcaster and Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton has been sacked for refusing to write his weekly column during a strike.

Carlton, a member of the journalists’ union, the MEAA, took the stand on the grounds that filing the column amounted to crossing a picket line.

ABC Radio said he had confirmed that he had been “let go” for not filing the column for the Saturday edition.

Well, if Fairfax were previously seen as – as one online commenter noted – the lesser of two evils (with News Ltd’s stable in the other camp), then those days are most certainly over. Perhaps they can arrange to deport some striking journalists’ children, or push over a granny crossing the street, just to complete the effect?