ABC board members take 10pc pay cut as job losses loom
ABC’s board members will take a six-month cut, as it prepares to announce up to 250 jobs losses on Wednesday.
ABC’s board members will take a 10 per cent pay cut for six months, as the public broadcaster prepares to announce up to 250 jobs losses on Wednesday as part of its long-awaited new five-year strategic plan.
The ABC board, which is chaired by Ita Buttrose, has written to the remuneration tribunal and received their consent to cut board fees by 10 per cent from July to December, an ABC spokesman said on Tuesday.
“The board has made this decision in response to and in recognition of the difficult economic challenges being felt by many Australians at present. Consideration of the staff wage increase deferral is still in discussion.”
The 10 per cent pay cut for the nine board members over six months equates to slightly more than $33,000.
Ms Buttrose, who was appointed chair last year in February by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, is giving up a little more than $8700, based on her annual salary of $174,690.
Managing director David Anderson has sent out an invitation to staff for an online meeting on Wednesday at noon to announce its five-year plan and budget response, the ABC spokesman said. All ABC directors, including news boss Gaven Morris, will then hold separate team meetings.
The job cuts are expected to affect news, analysis and investigations as well as entertainment and specialist areas, including its lifestyle website ABC Life, plus regional and local services as management look to plug an $84m budget hole.
Since the coronavirus crisis, the majority of commercial media companies, including Nine Entertainment, Seven West Media, Bauer Media and News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian, have cut jobs and costs in a bid to offset the double digital drop in advertising revenue.
The sector, which was facing weak ad revenue prior to COVID-19, has also seen regional and local newspapers axed, and many newspaper sections and magazines temporarily suspended.
ABC’s new five-year blueprint will be the first under Mr Anderson and Ms Buttrose following the acrimonious departure of Michelle Guthrie and Justin Milne in August 2018.
The announcement comes just a few days after the Fair Work Ombudsman announced that the broadcaster would make a record $600,000 “contrition payment” to the Commonwealth after admitting underpaying 1907 employees by $12m over more than six years.
Mr Anderson earlier this month told staff that it will “share the strategy before the end of the month”, nearly three months after the delaying its release due to COVID-19.
He informed staff mid-March that its five-year blueprint had been delayed as it focused on staff welfare and news reporting on the coronavirus pandemic. The five-year was originally planned to be release at the end of March.
Mr Anderson told staff last month that the broadcaster decided in April that it was “not appropriate in the current environment to pay bonuses to senior executives or any salary at-risk payments this financial year”.
In an email to staff, Mr Anderson said he had declined a 2 per cent pay increase, and requested his salary be cut by 5 per cent from April until the end of September.
“The savings realised from these measures, and other reductions to expenditure this financial year, have contributed to content initiatives during the global pandemic,” he said in the email, seen by The Australian.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher last month told the broadcaster to defer a 2 per cent staff wage increase, in line with other tax-payer funded organisations during the coronavirus crisis. In order for it to be deferred, the ABC has to call for a staff vote.
Mr Anderson told The Australian last October that his top priority is overhauling the broadcaster to appeal to Australians from the suburbs, regions and different ethnic backgrounds.
Most of the ABC’s near 3280 workforce was in NSW. It had 1696 staff there, with 495 in Victoria and 333 in Queensland, according to the broadcaster’s 2019 annual report.
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