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Union highlights job cuts in challenge to Newsquest award

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The National Union of Journalists is to raise concerns with the government over the award of a coveted business accolade to a regional publisher’s production hub.

As reported by HTFP last week, Newsquest’s group editorial services unit, based in Newport, had been awarded the Investors in People Bronze Standard.

But the NUJ has hit out at the award, highlighting what it termed the “summer of sackings” and now the “autumn of axings” at the regional publisher.

The NUJ says it will examine whether the Investors in People standard was “legitimately awarded” and will write letters raising its concerns to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and to IIP.

The Newport hub, which now employs 140 people, brings together newspaper planning, page-design and copy-editing, producing copy for more than 250 Newsquest publications.

But the NUJ claims the jobs in Newport are typically lower-paid and lower-skilled than the ones they have replaced at other Newsquest centres across the country.

Chris Morley, Newsquest NUJ group co-ordinator, said: “The awarding of Investors in People Bronze Standard to Newsquest was greeted with uniform disbelief by our members.

“While the gong was given specifically for the Newport hub – whose staff are in an impossible position, given the huge volume of titles they handle – it is clear that the award body had no interest in seeing the wider context involved.

“In July, the NUJ was forced to categorise Newsquest’s apparent demonic devotion to redundancies as a ‘summer of sackings’ and chapels in London called 12-day strike action over savage cuts.

“The company’s record on employment is shocking since it neither invests in proper staffing levels nor attempts to pay its journalists decently. Most people have suffered from having virtually no pay rises for seven years.”

He added: “Our members cringe when they see the company seeking to gain ill-deserved kudos from a public body. We feel either the Investors in People organisation has absolutely the wrong criteria when judging companies such as Newsquest, or they are wilfully blind and just see any business willing to contact it as a worthy recipient of its blandishments.

“We do not think Newsquest deserves this promotion and publicity and shall be examining at whether the IIP has legitimately awarded it.”

The union has highlighted job cuts at Newsquest centres across the country, including the axing of photographers at many regional newspapers.

The IIP award was partly given for a graduate training programme run in conjunction with Cardiff University, which saw more than 30 new staff gain National Council for the Training of Journalists qualifications and a similar number of staff gaining management training.

When the award was announced, Paul Devoy from Investors in People said it was the sign of a company “truly committed to good people management practice.”

Newsquest had not responded to requests for a comment at the time of publication.

12 comments

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  • October 9, 2015 at 8:37 am
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    “Newsquest had not responded to requests for a comment at the time of publication.” This is the standard sign-off rubric on many of HTFP’s reports now but surely in all conscience the company HAS to respond to this one. To leave these matters unresolved casts Newsquest in the most unfavourable light – almost to the point of reputational damage – and the irony of a communications company refusing to communicate is too glaring for it to ignore. That’s if it cares about any of the above.

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  • October 9, 2015 at 9:44 am
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    I know Newsquest are never available for comment, but this time they must be embarrassed at receiving an award such as this, and are keeping quiet,The reason they went to Wales was a cheaper workforce and a grant from the Welsh Government, investing in people was not even considered.

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  • October 9, 2015 at 11:23 am
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    With majority of regional newspaper companies, people, ie employees, are now just an annoying obstacle to revenue and fat dividends for shareholders.

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  • October 9, 2015 at 1:35 pm
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    I laughed out loud when I read about this award. Having dealt with some of what comes out of the Newport hub it’s clear Newsquest is not investing in people.
    I don’t blame the people working there. I know there are some very talented subs. But when you have been with an editor working late into the night to fit and fill templates and then waited until the last minutes before deadline for pages to come back for reading, you begin to understand that product quality and helping employees to do a good job are not high on senior management’s agenda.
    Investing in people does not mean expecting your staff to do more work and longer hours for no extra money. It does not mean expecting them to take on the responsibilities of people you’ve made redundant with no recognition and it does not mean getting away with paying them low wages while you pocket an obscenely large salary for overseeing the decline of a once thriving organisation.
    As for Investors in People? Let’s face it, who among us hasn’t written a space filler about a company winning some bolleaux award.

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  • October 9, 2015 at 1:38 pm
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    In Newsquest’s defence, one of the key elements of the award relates to effective communication with staff. We all know what ‘sling your hook’ means so that’s got to be worth got to be worth 10 pts towards the passmark just for starters…

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  • October 9, 2015 at 6:29 pm
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    I was one of the many made redundant as a result of Newsquest’s subbing hubs. It invested sod all in me.

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  • October 9, 2015 at 11:24 pm
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    To be fair to IIP the award is not about how a company pays its staff or how many it chooses to employ.Unfortunately IIP is all about how well the company manages the staff it has got in terms of paper work and procedures and company policies in place. . Newsquest is very fond of policies and procedures and handles redundancies according to the letter of their policies… as I have found out! Top marks for the paperwork guys.Maybe IIP should think about changing its name

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  • October 11, 2015 at 7:10 pm
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    As someone who was forced out of Newsquest – I am kind of pleased I was now. The company is imploding and the end of the road can not be far away now. I’m glad I went when I did because the stress and upset of working for this penny pinching organisation was the worst I have ever felt in my working life.

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  • October 12, 2015 at 9:40 am
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    The IIP award is a worthless bit of vulgar tat to nail up in the foyer to impress the uninitiated. I realised that when I worked for a major central government agency whose performance and industrial relations were notoriously dire, which threw millions into getting IIP status for as many of its sites as possible not as a sign of investment in its staff, but a substitute for it; it was the only personnel management award available which didn’t actually require someone to talk to the personnel or judge how they were being managed. In fact, the staff regarded seeking IIP status as a sign of the management’s contempt for them. Not much has changed in 20 years, it appears.

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  • October 12, 2015 at 11:26 am
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    I wonder how many regional subs and staff photographers up and down the country NQ have fired over the last few years in order to win this prestigious accolade? NQ invested zero in them it would seem…

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  • October 13, 2015 at 10:19 pm
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    I don’t know anyone who has left Newsquest, voluntarily or otherwise, who isn’t very happy to have done so. Maybe we should feel more sorry for the poor sods still working there.

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