Standing up again

On November 5, NUJ members at The Press and the Gazette & Herald took collective action as part of the union's Stand Up For Journalism day. Fed up of a culture of rising workloads, understaffing and poor wages, we staged two collective tea breaks to demonstrate our strength of feeling. Now we are preparing to stand up again, this time about pay.

Our protest last autumn was about the threat to quality local journalism posed by companies that are only too happy to cut resources back to the bone to boost profits. Our dispute is also about challenging the thinking of companies such as Newsquest that refuse to invest in their journalists or their newspapers but still rake in millions of pounds while the quality of their products - and the service they can provide to the community - declines.

We had a wonderful day of action on November. Here's hoping for more fireworks come Thursday.

Facebook friends

Our strike now has a support group on the social networking site Facebook. Please join the group, add your comments to support the strike and spread the word among your friends and colleagues.

Click here to sign up.

Showing solidarity

More messages of solidarity have been pouring into the chapel by email to nujyork@gmail.com. Please keep them coming - we really appreciate them and they're a big morale boost for members who are due to walkout on Thursday.

"I wish you all the very best of luck with your action - as do all NUJ members in Coventry and Birmingham who on Tuesday voted to send a contribution to your fighting fund. Our experience in Coventry is that it isn't easy to go on strike but it has certainly been worth it in the longer term. Please advise your members to be strong. They are fighting not just for themselves but the whole industry."

"Solidarity greetings from Rotherham Advertiser Chapel. Branch agreed £100 and chapels will be asked to do collections. Keep up the fight!"

"My wife used to work for Newsquest and she despised them, so good luck. I have the misfortune of working for Trinity Mirror - but they became much more compliant following our month-long strike in 2005. We have certainly benefited during the following years."

"I'm writing to you on behalf of the 50-strong NUJ Chapel in Bolton and Bury to extend our full support for your action. In 2003, this chapel went on strike for several weeks during an angry pay dispute. And the editor-in-chief then, and up until last year, was, of course, Steve Hughes. All the journalists here back your stance for a greater pay increase and all eyes of NUJ members throughout Newsquest will focus on York next week. We applaud your stance, commitment and bravery in taking on a company notorious for its low pay and its constant climate of cuts and savings. Everyone here is keeping their fingers crossed the York chapel will prevail in its struggle. We will be thinking about you when the industrial action begins."

"Hello and good luck with your dispute members."

Digging deep

More wonderful news on the strike fund. Our colleagues at the Leeds NUJ Branch have donated £250, while fellow journalists in the 50-strong Bolton News-Bury Times chapel - papers both owned by Newsquest - have pledged £300. It makes a huge difference knowing we are not standing alone and that we have the support of fellow journalists and trade unionists.

These generous donations take our strike fund to £1,750 - a tremendous figure reached within five days of our action being called. Many thanks to all.

Keeping his counsel

During our strike, Newsquest management will no doubt be doing everything in their power to publish The Press and the Gazette & Herald as normal. Of course, with 70% of the editorial staff on the picket line protesting over their meagre wages, the quality of the papers is bound to plunge.

In their struggle to fill pages, press releases that can be chucked straight into the paper will come in very handy. In light of this, we thank the leader of City of York Council's Green Party group Coun Andy D'Agorne. He has committed to respecting our picket line by not sending press releases in to The Press for the duration of the dispute, and has asked other council leaders to do the same. This comes as a particular boon given that the authority's annual meeting - the highlight of the council year - comes on the first day of our strike.

On his blog, Andy said:

"The Greens will respect requests from the journalists affected not to send press releases to The Press during the dispute but to provide the information to other local media and the NUJ. I have asked other party leaders to do likewise."

Strike fund gets another boost

Our strike fund has been boosted still further after the Rotherham branch donated £100 from their fighting fund. We also owe a debt of gratitude to two more of our own chapel members who have both donated £50 to the fund. That takes our total to an impressive £1,200. Preparations are now well underway for the five strike days next week so please keep branch, chapel and individual donations coming. We are enormously grateful for all the support we've had so far.

Flooded with support

Many more messages of support are flooding in to nujyork@gmail.com. Many thanks to all our brothers and sisters in the trade union movement and please keep them coming. Here's a selection of the most recent emails:

"Good on you for sticking to your guns - managements may be pleading poverty, but shareholders' pockets are full, and so should ours be. We're going through the travails of renegotiating a pay deal and back you fully."

"As an ex-FoC of the York chapel it makes me enormously proud to see the group in such a healthy and feisty condition. I know there'll be a lot of my friends and colleagues from the Evening Press taking part in next weeks' strike, so to you all, and of course members who have joined since I left, I'm thinking of you. All 130 NUJ members over here at Leeds are right behind you. Loads of members have been emailing since they heard you were going out, stressing how much they support you and our proposal to donate the £500 to your fighting fund."

"Good luck with your action. This is an all too familiar story of a newspaper group raking in massive profits on the one hand and, on the other, trying to get away with cutting resources to the bone and depriving hard-working, dedicated and well-respected journalists of a living wage. Having worked for Newsquest I know exactly what you're up against, but you are in the right and you have our total support in your fight. Stick together, stay strong, and you can win."

"Good luck with your strike - we went on strike in Coventry three years ago and we're still reaping the benefits in pay negotiations. Once they realised we were prepared to go on strike and not just talk about it they started to take us more seriously and now they actually negotiate instead of just telling us there isn't any money for pay rises."

"I worked in provincial newspapers for years before moving into Press & PR, so I know what rubbish wages you get from the likes of Newsquest (in my area, they've got the Harrow Times). Press on, keep the faith, best of luck."

Spin by numbers

Newsquest York's managing director Steve Hughes put out a statement yesterday about our chapel's planned five-day strike. An article on the Press Gazette website included this:

Hughes rejected the union’s “misleading” claim about staff turnout in the strike ballot and said that 22 from a possible 58 voted in favour of the walk-out.

It is worth pointing out that it is simply untrue to say 58 people could have voted for a walkout. Obviously, the only people entitled to do so are union members, and there are 34 NUJ members at Newsquest York. Look at it that way and we have a big majority - close to 65%.

Of course, some people were unable to return their ballots, those on holiday during the voting period, for example. Of those who did cast their votes - 26 members - 85% said yes to strike action.

And who said journalists were no good with numbers?

They were the best of times...

The NUJ has a proud history as a democratic and fighting trade union - it celebrated its 100th birthday last year. What we didn't know until today, and we learn thanks to one knowledgeable supporter, was that our action continues a proud tradition among York journalists.

It turns out that the very first strike by NUJ members was staged by workers at the Yorkshire Herald, the distant predecessor of The Press, in 1911. Apparently working conditions there were "Dickensian"... This nugget can be found in Journalists: 100 years of the NUJ by Tim Gopsill, editor of the Journalist magazine, and Greg Neale.

We're glad to be carrying on this proud tradition...

Striking display of support

The chapel has been buoyed by the many messages of support we have received so far from fellow journalists and trade unionists. Many thanks to all and please keep them coming. Here's just a selection:

"Well done and good luck with the strike. Hopefully we at Leeds will be sending you a donation. Regards to all."

"All the best with your strike action. I think five days is definitely the way to go. The odd day does not hurt their operations enough. All the publishers are crying poverty this year, but they always do - in good times and bad - and we all know they can afford more than 3%. All the best from the ncjMedia chapel (Chronicle, Journal, Sunday Sun in Newcastle)."

"All the very best of luck in your dispute. We are going through a period of change and redundancies here in Johnston Press at the moment – admin, sales and editorial staff."

"Dear fellow NUJ members. Just wanted to send a note expressing my support for your action in calling the local management to account. I see from the NUJ mailing that although it may be decades since I was last involved in an NUJ local dispute, management attitudes and behaviour have not changed one bit."

"Dear Union Colleagues. As a BECTU representative I would like to pass on a message of support from our branch to our NUJ colleagues at the Press and Gazette & Herald who are currently experiencing such shabby treatment from management. We hope your industrial action brings an improvement in the situation and that the dispute can be resolved speedily in your favour."

Scargill backs journalists' strike

Probably Britain's most famous trade unionist, former miners' leader Arthur Scargill, visited York a week before our strike. He was in the city to attend a meeting of the Socialist Labour Party, which he leads, but he found time to give a message of support to NUJ members at Newsquest York as they prepared to head to the picket line. He said:

"As someone who has been the victim of press media over the years, I can give this assurance: I will practise what I preach and on behalf of the Socialist Labour Party, we will be on the picket line supporting the journalists."

Making the headlines

Used to writing the news, chapel members have enjoyed making the news today. Our strike plans have received wide coverage including on the Media Guardian, Press Gazette and Hold The Front Page websites. We're looking forward to making more headlines next week.

Strike fund tops £1,000

The support we've had from fellow journalists and trade unionists since announcing our strike has been overwhelming. In the last half-hour £350 has been donated to our strike fund by the Birmingham and Coventry NUJ Branch, and and another £500 has been pledged from the Yorkshire Evening Post/Yorkshire Post joint NUJ chapel. Our strike fund has now hit the £1,000 mark. An enormous thank you to everyone who has so far pledged their support.

Strke fund already growing

Management were only notified of our planned strike action an hour ago and we're already getting messages of support. The NUJ's Manchester Branch has sent their best wishes and pledged a donation of £100 towards our strike fund. Meanwhile, one of our members who is on holiday for the duration of the strike, business editor Ron Godfrey, has donated £50 to the fund. Sincere thanks to everyone.

Five-day strike set for The Press

NUJ members at Newsquest York are set to take five days of strike action next week after a failure by management to make an acceptable pay-offer.

The action will affect The Press, the company’s main paper in the city, as well as other Newsquest titles including the Gazette & Herald. The strike will run from Thursday 22 May until Monday 26 May.

The decision for to stage a five-day walkout was taken at a meeting of NUJ members on May 8, following eight months of negotiations that have failed to result in a deal on pay. The company has made a below-inflation offer of three per cent, which has been rejected by the union’s members at the York titles.

There is particular anger that management will not match pay-offers given to journalists at other Newsquest centres. Chapel reps say the below-inflation pay-offer comes against a background of increased workloads, understaffing, and attacks on members’ pensions.

Joint Father of Chapel Sam Southgate said: “NUJ members at Newsquest York are frustrated and infuriated in equal measure. This dispute is a result of management intransigence getting in the way of securing a reasonable deal.

“We’ve been patient throughout eight months of negotiations and have put forward a number of proposals to solve the dispute. We offered to bring in NUJ national officials and suggested going to ACAS for arbitration. At every turn we have been rebuffed and management is refusing to budge.

“Newsquest still has time to avoid this dispute by returning to the table for genuine and meaningful negotiations.

“Journalists at The Press and the Gazette & Herald want to get on with reporting news to the local community. It’s a real shame that management’s failure to move on pay has forced them into taking this action.”