EPMU members upstage media awards

Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union members have taken the stage at the Qantas Media Awards to protest plans by their employer, APN, to outsource its subediting to Australian company PageMasters. The protesting union members, who are mostly award-winning journalists, unfurled a protest banner and made a speech condemning the cuts. EPMU delegate and New Zealand Herald reporter Simon Collins is one of the journalists protesting and says the continued cost-cutting in New Zealand's newsrooms will make journalism awards increasingly meaningless. "We don't think it's appropriate to celebrate quality journalism at a time when that quality is being sacrificed in the pursuit of profit. As one of our members said to me recently, we're only winning these awards because we've been subbed, and that's precisely what APN is planning to do away with. "We're calling for APN to abandon its plan to outsource our subs and figured there was no better forum to make this call than a gathering of New Zealand's top journalists. These awards are about decent journalism and that means properly run newsrooms." The EPMU is New Zealand's largest media union, representing 5000 print and media workers. ENDS

Read Simon Collin's protest speech to awards, Click here for TVNZ footage, And here for youtube footage