Newsquest dispute � strike action continues
There was a Herald and Evening Times walkout on Friday 20th July, which received a lot of media coverage as can be seen via the links below. There was a further Herald strike on Wednesday 25th and there will be an Evening Times strike next Friday with the Sunday Herald on strike next Friday and Saturday. At the same time there is a continuous work to rule that is playing havoc with their production times. We would not expect trade unionists to buy these two papers next weekend.
There has been no attempt by management to end the dispute by finding a post for the woman chosen for compulsory redundancy and we are considering a parallel legal challenge (sex and DDA discrimination). The management has de-recognised the NUJ and barred me from addressing chapel meetings in the building. We have met, with the help of Ian Tasker (STUC), a senior member of H&SE in Scotland (Jo Walker) who has responsibility for challenging stress in the workplace and she is engaging with Amicus at Renfield St and the print plant in Cambuslang. NUJ officials met with Amicus chapel officers to discuss solidarity action after the print union members invited them to a meeting in Cambuslang print centre.
There has been a concerted worker campaign to call in the decision by the Competition Commission to allow Newsquest Ltd to take over The Herald group of newspapers in 2003 but it transpired that this was not possible because more than three years had elapsed. However, John Hutton MP, Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has the authority to reopen the investigation. The NUJ has a letter addressed to Mr Hutton that outlines how the commission was misled, the extent of the cuts already made and those planned for the very near future, and examples of the impact of Newsquest�s ownership on the Herald. These include, for the first time I can remember in 20 years, the Arts page being cancelled or combined with the one remaining general features page, only e-mail letters are actually considered for publication because Newsquest has no facility to have hand-written letters typed into the computer system, having cut back on the service provided by a call center, and poor building maintenance resulting in problems such as broken air-conditioning, broken taps, no hand towels and broken lights. We need as many letters as possible to be sent to Mr Hutton and ask that you email us so we can forward this letter for you to send. This is a serious situation, which will lead to the demise of working conditions and impact on journalists ability to produce quality newspapers if the year on year cuts don�t stop.
There has been no attempt by management to end the dispute by finding a post for the woman chosen for compulsory redundancy and we are considering a parallel legal challenge (sex and DDA discrimination). The management has de-recognised the NUJ and barred me from addressing chapel meetings in the building. We have met, with the help of Ian Tasker (STUC), a senior member of H&SE in Scotland (Jo Walker) who has responsibility for challenging stress in the workplace and she is engaging with Amicus at Renfield St and the print plant in Cambuslang. NUJ officials met with Amicus chapel officers to discuss solidarity action after the print union members invited them to a meeting in Cambuslang print centre.
There has been a concerted worker campaign to call in the decision by the Competition Commission to allow Newsquest Ltd to take over The Herald group of newspapers in 2003 but it transpired that this was not possible because more than three years had elapsed. However, John Hutton MP, Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has the authority to reopen the investigation. The NUJ has a letter addressed to Mr Hutton that outlines how the commission was misled, the extent of the cuts already made and those planned for the very near future, and examples of the impact of Newsquest�s ownership on the Herald. These include, for the first time I can remember in 20 years, the Arts page being cancelled or combined with the one remaining general features page, only e-mail letters are actually considered for publication because Newsquest has no facility to have hand-written letters typed into the computer system, having cut back on the service provided by a call center, and poor building maintenance resulting in problems such as broken air-conditioning, broken taps, no hand towels and broken lights. We need as many letters as possible to be sent to Mr Hutton and ask that you email us so we can forward this letter for you to send. This is a serious situation, which will lead to the demise of working conditions and impact on journalists ability to produce quality newspapers if the year on year cuts don�t stop.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home