Respected legal advisor to the ANF and NANA Hank Spier has commented on the ANF announcement about the QNF application in relation to collective bargaining:
I note the ANF NewsFlash about the QNF application to the ACCC for authorisation of collective bargaining conduct.
ANF is not correct in what it says in that News Flash.
The QNF application is on behalf of QNF,NANA and VANA and seeks to have the ACCC authorise QNF , VANA and NANA to bargain on behalf of their members and anyone who may wish to join them ( opt in )in any such collective bargaining. The reasons for this opt in provision is related to lessons learnt from the Bill Express debacle.
The application does not seek the authorisation of QNF bargaining on behalf of VANA and NANA . The ACCC would never allow such an application.
The 2004 authorisation ends early in 2009 and the QNF application seeks to extend the statutory protection afforded by the authorisation.
In 2004 QNF and ANF applied on behalf of the ANF and the various State newsagents associations for each to collectively bargain on behalf of their members. ANF had conditions imposed on its role in any collective bargaining and could not collectively bargain on a national basis.
The QNF application is along similar lines to the 2004 application.
I am not aware of any ANF application to the ACCC.
The ANF believes the application by QNF to negotiate on behalf of three state bodies is potentially damaging to industry solidarity.
Who are the ANF to talk about damaging industry solidarity? Their involvement in, and inaction over, Bill Express did more to wreck industry solidarity than anyone would think possible.
The ANF believes its members can feel confident that the ANF is in the best position to represent them on national issues in national forums.
What planet do these people live on? For a start, “members” should read “dwindling membership” and given their abysmal performance to date why would anyone want the ANF to represent them?
Q. Has the VANA-ANF love affair broken down completely or has VANA belatedly and finally realised that lying down with the ANF dog has covered it in fleas.
Didn’t need a legal advisor to tell us the ANF’s communication was incorrect.
Jim
Beautifully put.
Any newsagent remaining with the pathetic circus that calls itself the ANF is simply a moron.
The challenge is that the ANF pitch on this is that anyone criticising them is against newsagents unifying behind a single national body. I know that is not true but it is the spin they put to themselves and to those who still listen to them.
Mark
I am new to the newsagency business and I apologise if what I am about to say offends anyone. What I can’t understand is why we have so many factions in our newsagency industry. How can we possibly be a united body when all we see in fighting. Whilst we are waisting our time figuring out who is right our competitors are swallowing up all our customers. why are we not working TOGETHER/UNITED to compete against these corporate giants????? We can not fight with such division. Whatever way we choose to go we need to go only one way, stick with our decision, join as a united identity and kick some butt!! Our futures as newsagents depend on our unification. Why are we sitting around not fighting for this??
Nicole
I have been in the industry over 12 years and still dont understand why we are not united? all in fighting should stop before we let 7/11 boarders and the like put an end to us all together.
cheers andy
Nicole,
I’m two years in and I’m with you! Near as I can figure there are too many egos and too much history. To that end I say that all association staff have to just put it all behind and get on with the job of pulling as one. Everytime I see that happen there is another voice, another ego saying no.
The ANF appear to have made their position plain by making some dodgy decisions and not resiling from them. It would appear that the majority have lost confidence in them. Certainly those I speak to.
So where from here? Either we get a whole new team in at ANF and go from there or we all get behind the other current option which appears to be the QNF/NANA/VANA push.
Ball’s in our court.
Thanks for your support Brett and Andy! Which ever way we go we have to do it FAST and revive our newsagents! I am so very glad that there are some others who are watching the goings on of these factions. We need the power to bargain with our distributors. We need EVERY newsagent to back one faction we need to have the power of woolworths. The question is….How the hell do we accomplish this. There is no use bitching about it on this blog if every newsagent doesn’t read it. Anyone got any ideas on how to talk to every newsagent?
Nicole,
There are two key elements to representation – policy and commercial. On the commercial front, join Nextra, Newspower or newsXpress and support their efforts to seek good commercial outcomes for all who trade under that brand.
On the policy front, this is the only reason newsagents need an association.
It is the commercial representation which will provide more economic benefit to you. I say this has to be done through a marketing / franchise group because they have the levers of compliance. No association has this.
Also, a smaller group – like any of the marketing groups – is easier to manage than the whole channel which has never been truly unified.
Mark
PS. We get between 1,200 and 1,500 visitors a day here. I’d estimate that at least half are newsagents.
It has been stated many times before (and it is true in an industry that is as diverse as ours) that whilst we have 2000 (or whatever the number is) managing directors we will never achieve unification. But the real question is, how unified do we want or need to be as an industry? A significant part of our attraction to the public is that we still (hopefully) espouse those traits such as personalised customer service, specialist advice and wide product range that don’t come about as a result of unification, they are the result of being good retailers.
Mark presents it as a fairly simple situation – policy and commercial – and it is.
On the commercial side there are any number of marketing groups one can align with if running under a banner is your wont. Performing as a collective on the scale of a Woolworths is impossible and not why I joined the industry.
Where we need to be unified is in the area of policy and representation on the multitudinous matters affecting the industry as a whole and this is where federal and state organisations have performed abysmally both in the past and still today.
The ANF, for all intents and purposes, is dead in the water and any rattling noise coming out of that organisation is not that of the shackles the industry finds itself bound by as magazine distributors and newspaper publishers have their way with us, rather, it is that of the long dead skeletons which abound within the cupboards and boardrooms of the late ANF.
The same might be said of that august organisation based in Nicholson Street, Fitzroy – only this time the rattling is that of shekels in the tin cup as individuals elected by the industry abrogate their responsibilities and the promises they made pre-election as they throw principles out the door and attempt to turn VANA into yet another marketing group, one that will favour the few at great cost to the many and will serve to split the industry even further.
What’s the answer – I don’t really know if there is one – but what I do know is that whilst there is an ANF as toothless and weak as what we have and whilst there are state organisations who will prostitute themselves and change directions as often as VANA have, we have no hope of successfully tackling any of those critical issues now facing most of us.
Jim,
The real answer lies in the corporate approach. Seems like the industry associations need to talk with their members and disaffected ex members to understand what they require. Then, go hire the people with skills to achieve that result.
Member surveys are a good tool here as long as you ask the right questions in the right manner. None of this political push polling questioning.
Ex and current newsagents do not appear to have the skills to negotiate with $Billion companies and $Million per annum executives. If some do, they do not appear to be on your boards.
It’s probably why your VANA is fiddling in areas they know nothing about (Warehouse and distribution; Marketing Groups; Trailing commissions etc) whilst the rank and file get squeezed. They don’t have the skill set to do anything. I suspect others in the industry are in the same position.
This is a multi $billion national industry being run by local people with minimal skills in the key areas and that is your problem.
Imagine if every newsagent united on one or two desired outcomes. If every state association and the ANF was united in wanting the same thing and you hired the right people to negotiate, with one voice, on one platform, with one desired outcome.
Bite the bullet, get the right people in the right place for the right reasons and outcomes will start to flow. Not biting the bullet and not challenging the people you complain about is delivering the same old outcomes.
John Kennedy, ex VFL coaching legend once said “Do something – anything”. In your case, every newsagent not happy with their association needs to let that association know, in writing, so that at the next board meeting there should be a flood of corresspondence telling them the members aren’t happy. How would the minutes of that meeting read I wonder?
” Correspondence from 100 members proclaiming a lack of confidence in the board was received since the last board meeting. They all want a spill of the board”
How interesting would that be? If you’re not happy, grab a pen folks and Do something – anything!
Stephen,
You raise an interesting point.
You say let’s take one issue and we all unite on one outcome. I’m willing to try this right now.
Can we all agree (those who read this blog) that we pick an issue (for me it would be magazines) and lobby for all associations to do something. That we would also ring all our mates in the industry and get them to lobby also.
If we can get one issue up and running…. ah what a breath of air that would be.
Over to us?