Another senior ABC journalist told Fairfax Media that at least four of her colleagues had been selected for possible redundancy at lunchtime. "People are devastated," she said. "You are looking at people with upwards of 20 years' experience." "A couple of journos have been in tears." The husband of another senior journalist with more than 20 years' experience said he was appalled at the way his wife had been treated. He said she had been in floods of tears after being told she was on the list of people earmarked for redundancy. "Coming into Christmas, it is breathtaking in its brutality," he said.

"She feels like she has been treated with contempt. "There was no recognition of all the work she has done or her achievements." He said other reporters who had worked for more than 10 hours covering the Martin Place siege were also targeted for redundancy. 'People are devastated. You are looking at people with upwards of 20 years' experience.' Staff who are willing to take redundancy have until 5pm on Friday to accept the offer, which will be processed before Christmas.

Those who do not want to leave have the opportunity to approach their managers and take part in further consultations. The union representing journalists, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, issued its members a bulletin on Wednesday advising them the notification they received on Wednesday is "not a formal redundancy notice". "It is only advice of a preliminary pools assessment," the advice says. "You do not need to do anything at this stage and the ABC is not proceeding with any forced redundancies before the new year." An ABC spokeswoman said: "By the end of today, most of the approximately 100 staff who are in that situation will know, while more than 200 others will also know that they are not affected, which will give them certainty.

"It is important to note that, for those 100 who are potentially redundant, consultation continues and none of them will be leaving straight away unless they want to. "People who want to accept a redundancy and leave before Christmas are telling us and we are processing those as and when we can." The Fair Work Commission on Monday said the ABC should continue with its process of selecting employees for potential redundancy, which has involved grouping staff with similar skills into pools to fight for a reduced number of positions. The ABC would then process the redundancy packages of people willing to leave before Christmas. The commission also recommended the ABC continue to negotiate with union representatives and staff it had identified as potentially redundant, but who did not wish to leave the organisation before Christmas. MEAA chief executive officer Paul Murphy said the only people who would be leaving the ABC this week were those who wanted to leave. He said unions remained opposed to the ABC's redundancy process as it was inadequate and opaque.

"The pool process is unfair, lacks transparency and needs to be changed," he said.



