Moves by regional publisher Newsquest to cut costs by asking staff to take a week’s unpaid leave are understood to have spread across most parts of the country.
HTFP reported last month that employees at newspapers across the Wales, Gloucestershire and Midlands South regions were asked to take a week’s unpaid leave as an alternative to job cuts, in response to ‘poor trading conditions’.
Now it has emerged Newsquest managers in other parts of the country have also asked their staff to take five days ‘furlough’ in a bid to avoid redundancies, according to the National Union of Journalists.
Staff at centres in Bradford, Darlington, Blackburn, Bolton, York and Oxford are among those who are understood to have been asked to do this.
Chris Morley, NUJ Northern and Midlands organiser, said he had heard reports about staff being asked to take unpaid leave in various parts of the country and he believed it now affected most Newsquest centres nationally.
Mr Morley said: “You can’t be forced into it contractually so they can’t oblige people to do it but the reports that I have got are that there are some strong-arm tactics being employed by managers calling in people to say why they think it is necessary.
“I think it smacks of desperation. We know that the individual operating centres within Newsquest are almost all profitable but there’s obviously huge demands from the US parent company Gannett to keep the profits high.
“That is placing impossible strains on local businesses and the company is looking for our members to subsidise the shareholders in America.
“The company had its pay freeze broken as a result of the stance our chapels took but they are effectively asking for it back with a week’s furlough.”
He added most centres which had been offered the 2pc pay rise by the company had accepted it, although not all had received the offer yet because of when their pay review anniversaries fell.
Newsquest chief executive Paul Davidson was not available for comment at the time of publication.
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It must be amazing to have a skin as thick and insensitive as Paul Davidson (21% pay rise aat the time of the last “furloughs” round, etc). If he exists, that is – we have no proof!
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if some of the senior managers take unpaid leave no-one notices the difference. But on the shop floor where the real work is done enforced holiday makes a huge difference.
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Don’t agree to it – I did last time and they still made me redundant! And don’t be afraid to leave Newsquest – just set up your own truly local publication on their patch and watch it fly while Newsquest self-inflicts more wounds upon itself.
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Like so many newsquest staff past and present I too cannot believe the attitude of the chief executive. Three years of pay freeze in the centre I worked in until retirement and the end of last year. Everyone had already taken a Furlough two years ago, We were never officially told how much it had saved or how much the company had made out of it yet 100 per cent of the staff in the centre agreed to it. Newsquest chiefs seem to have little interest in the editorial staff.
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Paul Davidson can easily afford to take a furlough. Losing a week’s pay makes little difference to his giant salary. However a week’s pay means an awful lot to his poorly paid workers. The entire NQ management could take a never-ending furlough and few would miss them.
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They’re dead, aren’t they?
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I wonder if staff at other centres will have their 2pc pay rise promise withdrawn if they don’t play ball.
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I’ve heard that in one centre,those who don’t play ball have been told they’ll be first in line for any redundancies.
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Ahhh, the double standards… reporting on such a thing while its own staff are strong armed in to accepting ‘furlough’! http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/8880168.Blackburn_with_Darwen_staff_asked_to_take_unpaid_leave/
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