Strike ballots at two Johnston Press newspaper centres have today resulted in ‘yes’ votes.

But the National Union of Journalists failed to persuade a majority of union members at both the Scarborough and Sheffield centres to back strike action.

The NUJ asked members of its two chapels last month whether they would like to take part in full industrial action or action short of striking, such as only working contracted hours.

At Yorkshire Regional Newspapers, publishers of the Scarborough Evening News and associated titles, 24 ballot papers were sent out with 14 returned on both questions.

Eleven members said yes and three said no to strike action. Eleven members also said yes to action short of striking, two said no and one paper was invalid.

At Sheffield Newspapers, publishers of The Star and associated titles, 63 papers were sent out with 43 returned on both questions.

A total of 28 members said yes and 15 no to strike action while 33 chose yes and ten no to action short of striking.

Management at the two divisions have been informed of the ballot outcome this afternoon.

The NUJ says the dispute is over a failure to give a guarantee of no compulsory job losses and the implementation of the new Atex content management system as the company looks to centralise production operations in Sheffield.

The NUJ now has 28 days from today to take industrial action but must give management seven days notice.

Johnston Press declined to comment on this story.

Comments

Wolfie (09/04/2010 08:52:46)
Oh! Johnston Press declined to comment.

At Last! (09/04/2010 10:14:19)
Congratulations to all those who voted for industrial action. It’s about time we stood up to this company which doesn’t even speak the language of journalism, far less recognise what we do. They are turning our newsrooms into sausage factories. How many MPs get in on an absolute majority anyway?