Newsquest North West journalists to ballot for strike

Journalists at Newsquest titles in the North West have voted unanimously to ballot for strike action over proposed staff cuts.

The strike ballot, a response to seven planned redundancies in the region, will begin on Tuesday (30 August) and last for a week. NUJ assistant organiser for the region Lawrence Shaw said that the unusually short ballot was due to the company refusing to extend its 30-day consultation period to account for staff being on holiday.

The NUJ is well represented across Newsquest titles in the North West, Shaw said, with 37 out of around 45 editorial staff members of the union.

Around 30 of those 37 staff attended an emergency chapel meeting on Monday night, with all of those at the meeting voting to ballot for strike action.

Newsquest is seeking seven redundancies across its offices in Warrington, Sale, and Northwich, with three out of 12 sub-editors expected to be cut at the Warrington Guardian, and three reporters and one feature writer cut from across the group.

Shaw said: "I think its very clear that cutting that many jobs will be very damaging for the titles. The journalists there are resolute that they cannot sustain the workload with losing seven people and that's why they have taken this step so quickly.

"We simply don't believe they are going to get seven volunteers, and the one thing the union won't stand for is compulsory redundancies. We don't believe that is the way forward."

Shaw said that the union had "big concerns" about the workload facing staff left at the titles if the cuts go ahead, and was seeking "real negotiations" with the company to try and avoid them.

Responding to the announcement of the planned cuts earlier this week, NUJ Midlands and Northern organiser Chris Morley said the union was "stunned" by the plans and called it "highly regrettable" that the company did not engage with the chapel in an attempt to find ways around the cuts.

The union also published the company's accounts for the region in its statement, claiming that Newsquest North West made a profit of £5.03m in 2010, down from just £5.4m in 2009, and that staff costs fell by nearly £600k over the year.

Newsquest was unavailable for comment.

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