A regional daily editor has defended bonus payments given to staff who crossed a picket line while journalists at the title were on strike.
Around 40 members of the National Union of Journalists at the Southern Daily Echo walked out on Tuesday and Wednesday last week in their second 48-hour strike over the ongoing Newsquest pay freeze, setting up their own blog to chart the dispute.
But union members now say managers are provoking possible further industrial action after claiming staff who crossed the picket line were awarded a bonus of two days’ extra pay.
Editor-in-chief Ian Murray said the payments were given to staff who worked extra hours and carried out additional duties, stressing not everyone had received the same bonus payments.
He said: “Staff who worked during the two periods of industrial action carried out extra duties and covered extra hours and this has been recognised. As such not everyone received the same payment.
“In my letter to those staff explaining the extra payments, I recognised that no one continued to work through the strike action in order to achieve personal gain and fully understood they may wish to donate their extra payments to charity. That is their choice.
“I am surprised that the NUJ would not wish for journalists to be recompensed for their efforts. To suggest that staff not in work should receive part of the payments due to those who did carry out extra duties is patently absurd.”
The NUJ chapel say their dispute over pay, which has been going on for eight months, could have been ended if this money had been distributed evenly among all staff.
Father of chapel David Brine said: “The chapel are meeting next Tuesday and we are going to decide what our next course of action is then. We haven’t ruled anything in or out.
“But we are disappointed after being told for eight months there’s no money, to see it being handed out.
“It will be up to our members to decide exactly what they want to do in response.”
The chapel said some staff members were uncomfortable with accepting the bonus and has invited them to donate it to its strike fund.
NUJ members initially went on strike on 9-10 November and were due to hold another 48-hour walkout the following week but this was called off to hold further talks with management.
At the meeting which was held, the union says it suggested staff were offered a one-off bonus to end the dispute, but management said this was not possible.
Ahead of the meeting, editor-in-chief Ian Murray had already said the wage freeze was not up for discussion.
Further strike action has been voted for by a number of other Newsquest centres over the pay freeze and job cuts, while ballots are being held at a number of other centres.
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
If this situation – paying bonuses to people who worked during strikes to further fragment the workforce – existed in any other industry it would be reported as big news by Newsquest titles. The fact that it isn’t illustrates the hypocrisy throughout the company and undermines its credibility as a news organisation. It really is time for NUJ members and union officials to broaden publicity: get local TV stations and radio stations involved; lobby MPs and councillors; get out leafleting on the high streets; and take this dirty war of double standards – with its pay freezes for workers and big bonuses for bosses – out into the daylight where the readership and advertisers can see just what’s going on at the supposedly respectable and community-minded papers they finance.
Report this comment
A classic tactic of divide and conquer being implemented by Newsquest management. I hope those in receipt of this immoral sum will think long and hard before putting it in their own back pockets.
Report this comment
My previous comment was removed, perhaps for being a bit too forthright with my opinion. So I’ll try to temper my words a little just in case I upset anyone: Ian Murray seems like a fine upstanding member of the Newsquest management team. His tactics for bringing people together, raising staff morale and increasing productivity are winners in anyone’s book. Well done Mr Murray. You’ll go far.
Report this comment
It appears that Mr Murray is not keen to share the above news with his readership. I just posted a link to this article in the comments, under the lead story on the Echo website. It was removed within ten minutes of me doing so.
Report this comment
It’ll never catch on. I can’t see people of principle touching dirty money like this……….
Report this comment
If it is patently absurd to suggest that staff not in work should receive part of the payments due to those who did carry out extra duties, why has the payment been offered to someone who was actually on holiday when the strike took place? Perhaps Mr Murray would like to explain that to staff who are still waiting to receive loyalty payments they are owed since July 2009.
Report this comment
No reason then for Newsquest not to pay overtime for all the extra hours worked as a matter of course in this job. Get your claims in now
Report this comment
I presume that the strikers are striking because they were fed up with putting in countless hours of unpaid overtime year after year. Hey presto! A handful do a bit extra after their colleagues have had enough and get a reward. I trust their friendship and comradeship will be acknowledged once this is over for now!
Report this comment
Does Newsquest have any idea of the damage it is doing to itself as a company?
Report this comment
Just a thought, but next time the workers go out, why don’t half go out, and half go in, then they give the extra money the get as a bonus as strike pay to those on the picket line. Could be the first company sponsored strike in history…
Report this comment
NOW is the time to work to rule, and demand bonus payments whenever you work over your contract hours. Worth far more than a 2-3% salary increase. The Editor has now set a new benchmark for bonus payments for working extra hours.
Report this comment
Does anyone else look at the actions of the NUJ nationally for the past 20 years and get reminded of the film Carry on at your Convenience? Or is it just me?
Report this comment
As a non NUJ journalist working at another Newsquest centre, can NUJ members elsewhere in the country go on strike ASAP please – I would welcome the extra cash. Kerching!
Report this comment
On average, I work about 12 hours over my contracted 37 hours every week at the Echo. On many occasions I have done as many as 25 hours more. Not once have I been thanked, let alone paid extra. Now however, I look forward to the huge payment to “recompense me for my efforts”, to paraphrase Mr Murray. Surely being a union member isn’t enough for him to discriminate against me?
Report this comment
Realist: It’s just you.
Report this comment
it’s clear that Newsquest is now opening itself up to the principle of paying overtime for staff working more than their contracted hours, superceeding the so-called ‘Martini clause’ that required staff to work ‘any time, anywhere’ subject to the company’s ‘business needs’. Chapels should therefore add an agreed level of overtime of time off in lieu to the claims they are currently processing.
Report this comment
Stupid move by Murray. Once an editor starts playing politics like this he loses respect among the workforce.
Report this comment
The saddest thing for me in all of this is that, more than anything, staff just want fair pay for the work they put in. Not riches, not increases far and above the rate of inflation, just fair. So if times are hard, then they understand the need to tighten the belt. Unfortunately, there is no fairness here. Bonus payments if you’re crossing the picket line. Belt-loosening increases in pay if you’re the silent-as-ever chief executive. But if you’re hard at work day in, day out, trying your hardest to make the titles the best they can be in the face of chronic underinvestment? Sorry, nothing for you.
Report this comment
Presumably Newsquest will now be paying out huge amounts to journalists who regularly put in unpaid hours to make sure the paper gets out week-in, week-out. No? Surely some mistake.
Report this comment
Well done, Cynic. It’s people like you who keep provincial journalists on the breadline by being willing to shaft their colleagues at every turn. Bet you don’t gain much, though – managements are never grateful for this doglike devotion to their cause, they’ll just use you and throw you on the redundo heap like everyone else.
Report this comment
Who is saying it is a bonus? Looks like it was to cover extra hours and work? Surely the NUJ isn’t arguing over the fact overtime is being recognised?
Report this comment
What a pleasant place to work this will be. It’s not very often I would condone/use the word scab, but those people breaking the strike and earning extra money are the scabbiest of scabs. They actually make me feel sick. What a morally-bankrupt business journalism now is. Get out of this foul industry NOW!!!!!
Report this comment
@Bonkers: You can be certain that after this dispute is settled, Newsquest will lose its enthusiasm for paying bonuses for extra work. As you can see in some of the other posts, the company considers that it ‘owns’ its employees and can throw any amount
Report this comment
Well said Harold. They are scabs, and they should be treated as such, taking the shilling for shafting strikers with a legitimate grievance. Will they be turning down any pay rise gained through the action of their NUJ colleagues. I don’t think so. In my humble opinion, those who struck, shoudl refuse to work with the scabs and then see how the Gannets get on.
Report this comment
Scabbing never achieved anything except dubious short-term financial gain, complete loss of self respect and an earful of spit. They’ll be prime targets in the next round of Newsquest cost-cutting because they’ll have no one to defend them. Soft option.
Report this comment
RE Bonkers – the editor said it was a bonus. No one is saying staff shouldn’t get paid for the hours they do but that’s the point. Journalists at this paper typically do at least a day of unpaid overtime every week and never get the money back. This bonus was paid to everyone who crossed the picket line, in the form of an extra day’s pay, regardless of whether or not people had put in extra hours. If the Echo generally paid people for the hours they actually worked it would cost a lot more than the pay rise being asked for.
Report this comment