Strike at Newcastle Chronicle and Journal

National Union of Journalists members at the Mirror-owned Newcastle Chronicle and Journal have rejected a slightly improved pay offer and will strike on Thursday July 25 and Thursday August 1. The new proposals leave most NUJ members receiving just 2 percent. Trainees will start on £12,250 per year - compared to a reported average graduate starting salary of £19,000.

The minimum rate for journalists with all their professional qualifications, working on some of the UK's most prestigious regional titles is £17,500 - less than £10 a week more than a McDonalds trainee manager on their first day in the job.

Chronicle and Journal boss Steve Brown told a union meeting that Trinity Mirror's profit margin - 25 percent of turnover - is not high enough. After his speech only four NUJ members voted against strike action. Supporters are asked to visit the picket line between 6am and 7pm at the Groat Market, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

The strikers will need money. Please urge your union branch to hold a meeting and send a donation. You could organise a whip round in your workplace. Please make donations payable to Newcastle NUJ Branch and send them to 11 Trinity Courtyard, Newcastle, NE6 1TS. Individual donations are also welcome.

Messages of support can be a huge morale booster. Please take a few seconds to email your support to the chapel (workplace branch) on geomacstg@onyxnet.co.uk

Feel free to send these details on to friends in the NUJ and wider labour movement.

Scotsman publications up ante

The industrial situation at The Scotsman Publications Ltd. newspapers looks to be heading towards crisis point if claims by their SMG rivals, the Sunday Herald, prove to be accurate.

Alarm bells were already ringing at the NUJ when it was announced that 17 jobs were to be lost with the merging of the Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday business, features and pictures desks. At present, it is believed that Evening News staff will remain unaffected.

However, the Sunday Herald has claimed that the number of job losses could be as high as 50, something that would be of grave concern to the NUJ in Scotland. The union has been monitoring developments at the publications and a statement will be forthcoming in due course.

Make new media policy by email

To join the email group visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nuj-newmedia

If you no longer work in new media (by which we mean on-line, sms messaging, cd roms, email newsletters etc), please let me know so we can amend your records.

Miles Barter
Servicing officer of NUJ Online Media Joint Council

'Miami Five' lawyer to visit Glasgow

A Miami lawyer who unsuccessfully defended five Cubans convicted of spying on the US military is to bring their campaign for a retrial to Scotland.

Paul McKenna, was the state-appointed lawyer for the so-called 'Miami Five' who are currently serving long jail terms in the US. He is due to speak at a public meeting in the House of Commons on July 9 and will meet lawyers and activists in Glasgow on July 11.

He will also take the case up with members of the Scottish Parliament and address a public meeting in Manchester during a one-week visit organised by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

McKenna, from Miami, Florida, is to launch an appeal in the US this autumn to get a retrial for the five Cubans whose rights, he says, were grossly infringed in the trial.

McKenna said: "There is no way these men should be serving the sentences they have been given and they were not guilty of the crimes for which they have been convicted".

The five men, Antonio Gerrero Rodriguez, Fernando Gonzalez Llort, Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, Ramon Labanino Salazar and Rene Gonzalez Sehweret, are, according to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, considered national heroes in Cuba. All of the men deny being spies.

The Cuban government claims they were watching paramilitary groups in Florida that carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks on Cuba.

Billboards all over the island depict the men with the slogan "Guilty of Fighting Terrorism."

McKenna insists the men are innocent, saying: "These men were never spying on the US and none of them were ever implicated in any conspiracy to murder. We produced plenty of evidence to prove that, but they still got convicted. I believe in the US justice system but in this case it let these men down."

McKenna has also condemned the venue of the trial in what he described as "the fanatical anti-Castro environment of Miami." This will mark the primary basis for demanding the retrial as it will be claimed that the men were denied their Constitutional right to a fair hearing in a neutral place.

The meeting takes place at STUC offices, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow at 2.30pm on Thursday 11th July. Visitors will be welcome to attend.

For more details please contact: Ken Ferguson Development Worker Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign 0141 221 2359 (office) 01337 840668 (Home) 07761 079 185 (Mobile).

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