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Trinity Mirror urged to avoid compulsory job cuts

Trinity Mirror is being asked to agree that no compulsory redundancies will be made as part of plans to axe more than 90 regional press jobs in a move towards more content-sharing.

The publisher announced last week that it would unveil a new publishing model which would see 92 regional jobs axed and 52 new ones created across its regional and national titles, in a move designed to lead to more content sharing.

But the National Union of Journalists is unhappy about the plans and a conference call was held between the group’s chapel representatives, during which many said they would be prepared to take industrial action if there were compulsory job losses.

The union is also asking Trinity Mirror to slow down the proposals and extend the 30-day consultation period.

The company has so far declined to have national talks about the plans, the union has said.

Northern and Midlands NUJ organiser Chris Morley said: “Our reps have flagged up major concerns which the company must address if we are to make progress in dealing with a highly disruptive strategic change by the group.

“The company must take its workforce with it, and the best way to do that is to fully engage with the NUJ as the recognised trade union in each of the centres affected.

“But it must be more than just local talks because these cannot be properly effective as the major decisions are being taken from Canary Wharf and the implementation is being directed to take place simultaneously at multi-sites.

“The bottom line for our members is that no one must be forced out of work and our reps have indicated that their chapels are prepared to defend that principle.”

He has also written to Trinity Mirror HR director Lesley Summerville raising concerns about the new publishing model, called Newsroom 3.0, and said the company should release details of trials which have been held.

The company plans to set up a shared content unit based in Liverpool which will produce features to use across similar regional titles but the NUJ chapels in Wales have raised fears that this would not be appropriate for their titles.

The union is also requesting an extension to this Friday’s deadline for applying for the current new vacancies because a number of these are based in London at the company’s national titles.

A Trinity Mirror spokesman said: “The NUJ has raised these points with us in an email and we’ll be replying to it privately.”