The Australian newspaper has had complaints from the National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA), upheld by the Press Council.
The complaints, made against the News Corp title last year, stem from two articles published in September of 2014, headed “A dirty deal that sold members down river” and “Employers do the heavy lifting, unions count their luck”.
The NECA complained that the articles were inaccurate and misleading with the stories saying that the NECA “received secret commissions” and had “forced” or “pushed” members into a “union enterprise bargaining agreement” (EBA) or a “pattern” EBA.
In response to the articles the NECA said it wrote a letter to The Australian after the first article to draw its attention to these inaccuracies and concerns. However, it was not published, and aspects of the article weren't clarified or corrected in any of the following articles.
The NECA said in its complaint to The Press Council that the publication of a short letter by a former state director of NECA, several weeks later, was not an adequate response to the issues raised.
The Australian highlighted that the articles were opinion pieces and labelled as such, and that the writer was expressing a view on NECA’s practices. It said the comments that NECA “forced”, “pushed” and “gets” employers to sign union EBAs was a comment on the behaviour of employer groups in these situations to encourage all members to sign template agreements.
The Press Council concluded that the statement in the first article that NECA had “forced” its members into pattern EBAs was not an accurate reflection of NECA’s business practice – which was to represent those members that requested it to negotiate on their behalf.
The Press Council noted that the articles were opinion pieces and the writer was entitled to express her view on what she claims is a lack of disclosure by NECA about its returns from severance funds, when putting an EBA to a member to sign. However, it said that the term “secret commissions” used in this context tends to connote illicit payments, and the article lacked fairness and balance in omitting to state that the payments were in fact disclosed in NECA’s accounts.
Therefore the Press Council upheld these aspects of the complaints.
The Press Council also upheld the complaint that reasonable steps were not taken to provide a published response from NECA or other adequate remedial action.
See the full adjudication here for yourself.
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