Staff at the Manchester Evening News and its sister weeklies are waiting to hear if there will be any compulsory redundanices at the papers.

Last month MEN Media announced it was seeking voluntary redundancies in response to a fall in advertising revenues, and a deadline for staff to register their interest has now passed.

The company has not yet said how many volunteers have come forward - or how many it is looking for - but compulsory redundancies had not been ruled out.

However National Union of Journalists members at the MEN have said they will instruct the NUJ's national officers to organise a ballot for industrial action if there are any compulsory redundancies.

At a chapel meeting last week they also unanimously rejected a 2.5 per cent pay offer which was announced at the same time as the redundancies and "a wide-ranging series of reviews" at the group.