Local journalists strike in York
Django | 22.05.2008 18:02 | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements
NUJ journalists at local newspapers The York Press and The Gazette and Herald of Malton have begun a 5-day walk-out over below inflation pay rises and continually worsening pay conditions. The strikers are demanding a 3.5% pay increase, in line with the offers made to journalists at other UK local newspapers owned by the same company, US media giant Gannet.
Both sides of the road outside the Walmgate offices are picketed, with a group of strikers canvassing for support in the city centre today being followed at a discrete distance by four police officers.
Workers on the pickets complain of the fact that US shareholders are currently "making a fortune" whilst their pay continually stagnates. Their daily strike paper, the York Stress points out that the business that owns the paper, Newsquest York, made an operating profit of £4.3 million last year, whilst the company's owners, Gannett, gave its shareholders an extra 18% in dividends in 2007. Gannet made a $1 billion dollar profit last year.
Both the workers and their strike paper complain of ever-worsening conditions and management belligerence:
Quote:
Newsquest, a subsidiary of the massive American corporation Gannett - is refusing to budge beyond an offer of 3%. With inflation running at 4.2% this amounts to a real-terms pay cut of 1.2%, which is unacceptable to our members who have endured years of below-inflation pay rises. We have already lost out after the company announced pension scheme members would have to pay an extra 4% for the same benefits ...
last year, we suffered massive understaffing, meaning not only our members, but the quality of the paper suffered. The equation is always the same: more work for less pay ...
Newsquest is pleading poverty while raking in £4.3 million a year in York. That cash goes straight out of Yorkshire to satisfy Garnett's American shareholders who last year enjoyed $1 billion profits. How can this be fair when a graduate trainee at The Press, with a mountain of debt, is paid just £13,500 a year?
The most any non-management journalist at the company could ever hope to earn is £22,500 - even those with decades of experience cannot hope to break through this glass ceiling.
Whilst increasing workloads, contributing to already unsociable working hours, management has refused to move, even in the face of union concessions. A union offer to accept recommendations from arbitrators ACAS has been met with management silence.
The average wage in York is £30,000.
Both sides of the road outside the Walmgate offices are picketed, with a group of strikers canvassing for support in the city centre today being followed at a discrete distance by four police officers.
Workers on the pickets complain of the fact that US shareholders are currently "making a fortune" whilst their pay continually stagnates. Their daily strike paper, the York Stress points out that the business that owns the paper, Newsquest York, made an operating profit of £4.3 million last year, whilst the company's owners, Gannett, gave its shareholders an extra 18% in dividends in 2007. Gannet made a $1 billion dollar profit last year.
Both the workers and their strike paper complain of ever-worsening conditions and management belligerence:
Quote:
Newsquest, a subsidiary of the massive American corporation Gannett - is refusing to budge beyond an offer of 3%. With inflation running at 4.2% this amounts to a real-terms pay cut of 1.2%, which is unacceptable to our members who have endured years of below-inflation pay rises. We have already lost out after the company announced pension scheme members would have to pay an extra 4% for the same benefits ...
last year, we suffered massive understaffing, meaning not only our members, but the quality of the paper suffered. The equation is always the same: more work for less pay ...
Newsquest is pleading poverty while raking in £4.3 million a year in York. That cash goes straight out of Yorkshire to satisfy Garnett's American shareholders who last year enjoyed $1 billion profits. How can this be fair when a graduate trainee at The Press, with a mountain of debt, is paid just £13,500 a year?
The most any non-management journalist at the company could ever hope to earn is £22,500 - even those with decades of experience cannot hope to break through this glass ceiling.
Whilst increasing workloads, contributing to already unsociable working hours, management has refused to move, even in the face of union concessions. A union offer to accept recommendations from arbitrators ACAS has been met with management silence.
The average wage in York is £30,000.
Django
Homepage:
http://libcom.org/news
Comments
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the average wage in york. . .
22.05.2008 20:51
more like £15,000 or less - the only reason the larger figure gets pull out from time to time is because there is a sizable minority on high wages
York is a low pay city - and this will remain the case as the council has just cut wages on average by 20% for the low paid in it's recent pay review - the council is York's largest employer.
Solidarity to the striking journo's - I hope they are sympathetic to council employees in their reporting when Unison pulls us out in the summer. . . .
zook
york anarchist
Median wage?
23.05.2008 09:18
pedantic moi
Strike paper out today
23.05.2008 13:00
It's always interesting to see what happens when media managers try to produce a newspaper without journalists.
Let's see how they get on.
Strike paper scoops management
Read the first edition of strike paper Stress here - Front page, Back page.
Spirits are high in York today (23/05) as members from The Press and Gazette & Herald newspapers begin their second day of strike action.
More than 25 union members and supporters turned out yesterday for the first of five days of strike action over pay. The strikers have been honouring those who took part in the NUJ's first ever strike which took place at the York Herald in 1911, four members wore Edwardian costumes to press home that nearly 100 years later trade unions are still fighting over pay and conditions........
Tony Gosling
Homepage:
http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=812