Cadet: Anatomy of a dispute

A senior Rural Press manager — Lloyd Whish Wilson — has sought to put his own spin on the Examiner’s sacking of Cadet Wes Young.

In response to an email from an Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance member questioning the fairness of the Examiner’s treatment of Wes, Whish-Wilson (General Manager, Regional & Metropolitan Publishing — Southern) said:

“I refer to your comments regarding a former employee of The Examiner Newspaper, Wes Young, whose resignation is now the subject of an unfair dismissal claim.

“The Examiner will contest the claim, maintaining its position that Wes formally resigned of his own volition and at his own instigation, to the Acting Editor. There are a number of witnesses. Wes also advised senior staff that he was resigning. That resignation was accepted in writing by editorial management.

“There are two sides to every story, and I do not think you have been informed of the other side to this one. I think the fact that the matter has gone this far tells its own story”

The Alliance is keen to make sure that both sides — or rather both versions — of the story clear. So here they are:

Wes’s version is simply this:
• He had worked for 12 months for the Rural Press paper the Examiner as a 2nd year Cadet.

• In August this year he was contacted by to editorial management at the Rural Press paper — The Advocate — asking if he was interested in a position at the Advocate. At that time, The Advocate editorial manager he spoke to told him he would be able to transfer his cadetship and his accrued entitlements across from the Examiner to the Advocate.

• Wes considered the offer and on 4th September again spoke to the Advocate manager, indicating he did want to transfer to the paper. He was advised that the Advocate would “get the ball rolling”, and that he should inform The Examiner’s acting editor of his wish to transfer who would tell him what needed to be done to at the Examiner’s end.

• The following day, he spoke to the Examiner’s acting editor Martin Gilmour, indicating that he accepted an offer to transfer to The Advocate, and asking how long the Examiner needed him to stay in order for the papers to make the appropriate arrangements. He was told that September 16th would be fine.

• The following day, he was contacted by the Advocate and was told that they had spoken to Examiner management, and in light of that conversation, the transfer would not be going ahead.

• When he went back to the Examiner, Wes was told by acting editor Gilmour, that he was aware the job transfer offer (and had spoken to the Advocate about it), but that Wes had given his verbal resignation and he (Gilmour) had accepted it.

The company’s version goes:

• Wes resigned verbally, and the company accepted the resignation.

• The company accepted the resignation in writing.

• There were witnesses to the resignation

• Wes advised senior staff that he had resigned.

And the MEAA’s response to the company’s version?

• Wes denies resigning and maintains that he only ever sought to be transferred from one Rural Press paper to another, and simply followed the instructions of Advocate editorial management in order to facilitate this.

• Whish-Wilson states that Wes’s alleged resignation was “accepted in writing by editorial management”. What he should have said is that the company gave Wes a letter dated 6th September stating they had accepted a “verbal resignation” allegedly tendered on the 5th September. There was no written resignation provided by Wes.

• Not one person came forward at the Industrial Relations Commission hearing on the 9th September to go on the record to confirm that they had witnessed the alleged tendering of the resignation.

• In fact, acting editor Gilmour did not even attend the Industrial Commission hearing at which he could and should have gone on the record to back up his claim that Wes had tendered his resignation.

• No witnesses came forward to confirm the assertion that Wes had told senior staff he had resigned.

• In fact, 17 (yes, seventeen) senior journalists signed a letter addressed to Martin Gilmour and copied to CEO Tom-“I’m not listening”-O’Meara in which they:

• registered their dissatisfaction with the way in which Wes had been treated;

• stated that it was their understanding that Wes had not tendered his resignation;

• called on the company to allow Wes to continue to work at the Examiner; and

• offered to send a delegation of staff to discuss the matter with management.

(We note that, apart from the editor telling editorial staff that he did not consider it appropriate for staff to have produced and signed the letter, this letter was ignored).

Lloyd Whish-Wilson states: “I think the fact that the matter has gone this far tells its own story”.

He’s right about that. The fact that the matter has gone this far simply and clearly shows that the company has been unable to provide a single piece of evidence to support acting editor Gilmour’s version of the story.

Whish-Wilson is also correct to suggest that followers of this story have not been fully informed of the company’s version. So the way is open for the company to explain why it is behaving in this way.

They might start by explaining:

• Why, even if Wes had somehow tendered his resignation (an assertion Wes strongly denies), he should not have been be allowed to continue to work at the Examiner in light of the collapse of the offer of a transfer to The Advocate;

• What exactly Wes had done, or who he had upset, to make the company so keen to be rid of him; and

• Why Examiner editorial staff should not be deeply concerned for their jobs, given that that at any time in the future, should an editor or acting editor desire to dispense with an employee’s services, all they need do is claim that the employee had tendered a verbal resignation, and the company’s most senior executives will line up to back the editor’s version of events, without any evidence whatsoever to support it.

Andrew Muthy, Industrial Organiser, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance

Earlier:
Cadet v Examiner