Journalists at a series of Newsquest-owned titles are to take further strike action this week despite signs of a thaw in the company’s pay freeze.
As reported on HoldtheFrontPage before Christmas, the publisher has made pay offers of 2pc to journalists at its centres in Bradford, Darlington, York and Glasgow.
However it is not yet clear whether the offers, which have not been accepted by any of the centres affected, will apply to titles across the group.
As a result, National Union of Journalists members at several centres still plan to take co-ordinated strike action this Thursday and Friday although it is by no means certain all Newsquest chapels will take part.
Journalists at the Southern Daily Echo in Southampton are to take three further days of action starting tomorrow, while NUJ members at The Argus, Brighton, are due to strike on Thursday and Friday.
In addition, it is understood that the NUJ chapels in Warrington, Bolton and Darlington are also set to join the co-ordinated protest, with the Warrington Guardian, Bolton News and Northern Echo among titles affected.
NUJ Northern and Midlands organiser Chris Morley said it would become clear over the next 24 hours exactly how many chapels were taking part in the action.
He said: “It is each individual chapel that is making up its own mind. They are deciding for themselves what they want to do. It is a decision for each chapel.”
The Southampton chapel had already decided to take part in the co-ordinated protest, but decided to add a further day of action due to the row over bonus payments to staff who crossed the picket line during an earlier stoppage.
A press statement issued by the Echo chapel described the extra day as “a bonus for managers at the paper.”
No-one from Newsquest has so far responded to requests for a comment.
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Do it, strike action must take place for the sake of the titles’ futures. “If you settle for nothing now then you’ll settle for nothing later.”
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2% is nothing. Think of all the extra work we’ve picked up over the last few years for one reason or another and the extra hours we’re being left with no choice but to work. The sooner I leave NQ the better.
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Let’s hope everyone is in it together. Some hope!!
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The irony is that the editors want to see the back of Newsquest as much as anyone. If they had any guts and self respect they would take some sort of action themselves instead of sacking their colleagues and repressing wages to protect their own positions. That’s nothing less than betrayal.
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The Darlington branch of the NUJ – working on titles such as The Northern Echo, Darlington & Stockton Times, Advertiser and Durham Times – has voted for action. We hope to avoid having to take action and come to a fair deal on pay and jobs, but will take action if necessary. We have a blog set up covering our dispute – visit it at nujdarlington.blogspot.com.
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If people dislike working for Newsquest so much, why not leave & join one of the other publishers who are doubtless doing so much better, and are actively recruiting. Oh… er…. Alternatively, keep striking, and your fingers crossed, and maybe one day the papers you say you hate working for so much will cease to exist. Sorted!
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Bertie. Thank you for that worthwhile and stimulating contribution. Your suggestion that the workforce should resign and take employment elsewhere is a logical and practical solution that must have required an astute mind and a complex series of thought processes to arrive at. You are, my friend, Newsquest management material. You shall go far. But not, I fear, far enough.
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Bless you, Lister. The point (actually) being that whilst I appreciate that at times a workforce needs to take a stand, the whole publishing industry is hardly in a healthy state. Fewer & fewer people are buying the papers, free circulations are falling, and titles still closing, and the online threat grows ever stronger. It is for these reasons that I think some of the plans suggested by the NUJ are hardly going to help the industry – not just Newsquest – survive, but are more likely to achieve quite the opposite. The further problem for journalists, circulation staff, etc. is that no publisher seems to be free of the aforementioned difficulties. Hence my rather facetious point – if people don’t try & help their current company through this, – and changes, including further redundancies, are sadly highly probable – then it’s not as if it is going to be easy to move elsewhere in the same field.
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Tell me, Bertie, we’ve had a pay freeze for three years, staff took an unpaid week-long furlough to help the company through, and in return we’ve seen Paul Davidson waltz off last year with a pay rise of more than £100,000. If we’re helping our current company through this, shouldn’t the executives be doing the same?
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Absolutely agree – and again, the same applies for all publishers.
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If the industry is in trouble I would expect the pain to be shared equally between top managers and everyone else who works for the company. In Newsquest’s case, the pain has certainly not been shared. At least one top manager has received a 20% pay rise in a year when the vast majority of employees – many not very well paid at all – got nothing. Additionally, everyone in Newsquest was urged to take a week’s unpaid holiday in 2009 “for the good of the company’. To me, Newsquest’s actions are completely wrong and the strikes totally justified. By Gannett’s own admission Newsquest is making, and has always made, healthy profits. I feel very sorry for those who work for the company and am thankful that I no longer do.
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Any Newsquest employee who votes against strike action is a coward who deserves to be abused by this pernicious employer.
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