Fremantle markets - fair suck of the sav

Oh Jamie, “Fair suck of the sav old mate”. A little Aussie slang we little people use as an exclamation of incredulity. Truly, I was gobsmacked at your Feb ’10 report. (Interestingly, this report was only handed out to selected tenants: why?)

Quote:
“We have seen outgoing tenants working hard to generate negative publicity for the Markets, and to deliver on a prominent ex-stallholders promise to ‘do as much damage as possible before we go.’ In this they have received a lot of support from certain Councillors who should know better. The very public campaign against Fremantle Markets that has been waged by these people through the media, the internet, public protests and misguided comment in Council Chambers has had a negative impact on attendance numbers, and this is unconscionable*.

Be very clear – some outgoing tenants and misguided Councillors have demonstrated by their actions that they do not give a damn about the future of Fremantle Markets or the welfare of the current stallholders. They would like nothing more than to see the Markets fail.”

Oh dear, everyone in the world is conspiring against your good will and genius visions.

Facts:
When Donaldson and Murdoch Seniors ran the markets they were popular, successful, profitable to all parties and world renowned.

They did not compete nor compare with others. They were iconic within their own uniqueness.

Leases were frivolous but behind them was a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ or a handshake that gave many security of tenure which held for twenty or more years.

No one needed to wear a name tag to contrive an insincere relationship with customers.

Stallholders mentored and nurtured each other and worked as a community within a community. No marketing guru will ever formulate or sell this X factor – it evolved over many, many years and included the hearts and personality of real people.

Previous management knew not to try and fix what wasn’t broken. Businesses relied on customer feedback for direction. Quite simply, if it didn’t sell, the business folded. Books do not teach anyone how to read a customer – only experience does.

Markets by definition must be good value for money with lots of atmosphere and offer an exhibition style of shopping. You have engineered it into a structured and disconnected meccano set. You can’t even figure out your trading hours.

Instead of supporting or protecting your tenants you have repeatedly bought in competitors who not only fail but take other well established businesses down with them.

You have relocated stalls into inappropriate positions and that has made it impossible for them to trade. They are a good number of the people who have been forced out of business and you have further robbed them of the right to sell what would have been a substantial amount of goodwill for a previously good business.

You have bullied people into dismissing their staff and you have demanded that some stop stocking some of their most popular lines. In some cases you have allowed others to then take on those same lines.

People have signed onto a long term lease believing they could sell the security of that only to find that you are now offering free entry into other vacant stalls. The promised security of tenure has now become a shackle.

The nepotistic advantages afforded Ms M's daughter has created a lot of acrimony and greatly disadvantaged the other coffee shop and to some degree other traders. This covert destruction and manipulation is being closely watched…

You doubled rents, increased outgoings, reduced advertising, relocated and reduced stall sizes. In doing this you forced product prices up and lost customers as well as successful traders. Some claim that this is now having a negative impact on other businesses throughout Fremantle.

You have even changed the nature of the markets - the very thing that made it a market.

On your one month to decide to “take it or leave it lease” many were unable to sell but in the few exceptions almost all of them who managed to sell, sold at less than cost. You had the audacity to write a cheerio in your newsletters making mention that they had sold and moved on. Truth: you forced them to sell out – they lost their livelihoods, their much loved business and their goodwill as well as most of their initial investment. Not to mention that most walked out with nothing at all.

Almost 25% of the stallholders have gone since you took on the new lease. A greater percentage of customers have also disappeared. Probable reason: they think the market is crap now!

Ann Meyer acts as your ventriloquist dummy and as irritating and disruptive as she is it is still your deeds which she does. You are backing her now but I suspect that she will be the fall guy when the ‘nice us up’ campaign gets underway. You are slick and you are in damage control. Miss M had better remember the many stallholders who backed you, campaigned and promoted for you - who you have now betrayed, dismissed and finacially devestated. Beware Miss M - the nature of the beast.

You sat in council and took names of all the people who had something to say about the predictable outcome of your megalomaniacal overtake. All but one or two of those people have since been shafted. You have systematically culled the people who opposed your ideas. They were right in their predictions and had you have been more open minded you would have realized that they were working to protect stallholders and trying to prevent this current chaos.

But now, seeing the insolence of your suggestion that stallholders should be entitled to expect you to be:
Helpful, friendly and ready to listen and;
Prepared to counsel, in a positive manner
Or that you ask them to:
Work with us as a team
Listen and respond and;
Avoid negative comment

Holy Moley you actually said:
“If you feel there are areas that need attention within the market please know that we are only a call away, or an email. We will make time to meet you to discuss your concern…We are committed to take all comments seriously.”

Excuse me, but wasn’t that what the stallholders association was all about? Do you honestly think that after the public flogging they received that there is anyone brave enough to offer any view that is not in line with your own dogma. Glaringly obvious, is the high rent. Do you wish to discuss this or can we take your quote from your Guru John Stanley’s website, “Jamie Murdoch, one of our clients in Fremantle, has just discovered a great article on “Only Losers Cut Their Prices”. Sounds pretty set in concrete to me….Discuss anything but the outrageous rents - the real issue!

This and your continued assertions that the rent is justified is ridiculous* when as soon as a rival and cheaper market was put on the drawing board you bleated something to the effect that stallholders would walk away on a daily basis. How can that be, I ask sarcastically, when you have said over and over it’s just a matter of ‘more professional traders’ Surly a new market housing your ‘cast offs’ is of no threat to your empire?

You talk about bullying in the workplace and yet most of the people there are intimidated by the victimization of all those who have been evicted or bullied into walking away. Such tensions currently exist that at least two assaults have occurred within the markets; bitchy and sarcastic comments are rife and even Ms M and Councillors have mentioned intimidation and feeling threatened – such is your leadership. This is all about you or because of you. How dare you suggest that ex-stallholders are ‘the trouble makers’? Let’s remind you once again that it was You who threatened to run the markets into the ground if You didn’t get what You wanted. You created bad blood with councillors and between stallholders and You gave the press the stories to write - they simply recorded your actions. There is a huge difference between retaliation and aggression – don’t you dare boo hoo when people push back!

Talk about intimidation, you have wiped the floor with the very people who fed you for most of your life. You glare and posture as people pack up and walk away, having lost everything, and in so many instances you felt the further vindictive need to stand security guards nearby to intimidate or humiliate; you changed locks prior to vacation, you made access difficult and gave limited time and extra pressure to get out. You didn’t even afford the decency to offer a note or word of thank you or good wishes.

Even your own parents put energy, effort and expertise into the market. They worked with stallholders to make it the success that it was – the successful enterprise handed to you on a plate. Can’t help but link that to your comment about 'in nature they eat their young!' I wish…

As for your inflammatory comments about ex-stallholders trying to damage either the markets or other stallholders I take strong objection and reiterate the intention has always been to fight you in regard to fair market rent and secure tenure. Reread your press coverage, this blog and the council transcripts – it is there over and over again. Ex-stallholders have lost their businesses and could easily move on without the aggravation but they are still campaigning collectively to fight for the success of Fremantle Markets (as a real market) and the security of all stallholders.

You are trying to suggest that there are 2 camps of stallholders and you are deliberately trying to pit them against each other. We are not so foolish that we don’t see that for what that is. We don’t consider ex stallholders and current stallholders as being on different teams. All stallholders are equally respected; many are very close friends and the new guys are as vulnerable as all of the rest. Our position is also inclusive of the customers and the Fremantle community as a whole.

Oh, and to blame everyone else for the decline in customers is just pathetic. Customers rarely complain officially or verbally, they simply walk away – doesn’t that say something?

You claim that the media, the internet, the public and the council are campaigning against Fremantle Market. What don’t you get? Let me help you with this with a very clear statement; we all loved the market – We dont love greed, ineptitude, arrogence, victimization or betrayal. Where or who is the common denominator?

*Unconscionable: Unusually harsh and shocking to the conscience; that which is so grossly unfair that a court will proscribe it. When a court uses the word unconscionable to describe conduct, it means that the conduct does not conform to the dictates of conscience. In addition, when something is judged unconscionable, a court will refuse to allow the perpetrator of the conduct to benefit.
*Ridiculous (John’s favourite scrabble word)
worthy of or exciting ridicule; absurd, preposterous, laughable, or contemptible

(Im sure all stallholders can drop by the office and ask for the full version of the progress report - in case they missed out on being given one)
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