Topping up the strike fund

During our five-day strike nearly all members lost out on pay, so our strike fund has compensated members to make sure they suffer no hardship as a result. This has reduced our strike fund. Fortunately, we have received considerable donations over the last few days to make up for some of the shortfall.

The NUJ Chapel at Newsquest Glasgow, who are struggling against the company's cuts and drive for profit at the cost of quality, sent a donation of £200 to our strike fund. A collection at the Northern Echo in Darlington, also a Newsquest title, brought in £131 for the fund. The Birmingham and Coventry NUJ Branch sent us £300, following an earlier donation of £350. Fellow Newsquest colleagues at the Oxford Mail sent us £50, as did friends at the Darlington NUJ Chapel. We also received individual donations totalling £50.

The chapel offers its wholehearted thanks to all these supporters.

Mandatory meetings make the news

News of our continuing battle for fair pay has already hit the trade press. We are featured in an article on the Press Gazette website, and also on Hold The Front Page. This was the press release issued by the NUJ and on its website:

Journalists in York are continuing their battle for fair pay by holding a series of mandatory chapel meetings each morning starting Thursday, June 12.

The 34 NUJ members will be holding meetings at 8am each morning up to and including Thursday, June 19. The meetings are intended to last as long as is needed for business to be completed.

NUJ Assistant Organiser, Jenny Lennox, said: "We are very disappointed that management still refuses to take this matter seriously. Our members feel they have no option but to take further action.

"The union remains committed to finding a resolution to this dispute and has repeatedly stated that we would be happy to meet with management but they continue to ignore us."

The action will affect The Press, the company’s main paper in the city, as well as other Newsquest titles including the Gazette & Herald. Members from these titles went on a five-day strike last month against a below inflation pay rise demanding a pay deal which matches local salaries and is in-line with pay at other Newsquest newspapers.

New action, new theme

After the success of our strike song Things I Learnt This Year, NUJ member and folk troubadour Richard Foster has repeated his success by penning another sure-fire hit. The tune is called Gannett, Mean And Petty and is based on Sally Free And Easy by Cyril Tawney. Richard gave the debut performance at the NUJ York Branch Social event last night, at the Golden Ball pub, which saw NEC member for newspapers Michelle Stanistreet talk with activists about recruitment and organising.

Richard said he was inspired to write the song afer receiving a letter this week from Newsquest York managing director Steve Hughes detailing how much pay he would be losing through the strike, and also "for the avoidance of doubt" stressing his annual leave and sick days would too be docked.

Richard was recently featured on the website of his church St Paul's, in Holgate, where he regularly plays guitar, talking about the strike. We hope to have a video of Richard's latest performance online soon. Here are the new lyrics:

Gannett, Mean And Petty

by Richard Foster (based on Sally Free And Easy by Cyril Tawney)

Gannett mean and petty, That should be their name.
Gannett mean and petty, That should be their name.
Took a decent pay claim, for a nursery game.

Send in the strike breakers, pay for their travel to York.
Send in the strike breakers, pay for their travel to York.
Buy them cake from the trolley, and praise them in York Talk.*

Hit your profit targets, that’s what Gannett always say.
Hit your profit targets, that’s what Gannett always say.
Ship out the jobs to India, and sack the ones that stay.

Gannett mean and petty, That should be their name.
Gannett mean and petty, That should be their name.
Counting cash in America, it’s a crying shame.

*NB: York Talk is the company's weekly internal newsletter.

Hitting the road

Given the huge amount of support we've received from fellow trade unionists and NUJ members, we want to make an effort to visit other chapels and branches to speak about our fight and to share any experiences we can.

One of our members travelled to Middlesbrough for the NUJ Teesside Branch meeting yesterday afternoon and told journalists there about our pay fight and why we decided to strike this time after suffering years of below-inflation pay rises. Teesside members generously donated £300 towards the chapel's strike fund.

At the same time, joint Father of Chapel Sam Southgate attended a Unison branch meeting at City of York Council's Guildhall. He spoke about the background to the dispute with Newsquest and the current situation. The council employees, who are currently in the middle of national strike ballot over a derisory 2.45% pay offer, expressed their solidarity with NUJ members in York and donated £100 towards our strike fund.

If you would like NUJ members from York to speak at your union branch or chapel meeting, please get in touch by emailing us at nujyork@gmail.com

Chapel is fighting on

Today the chapel gave notice to management of our intention to continue the fight for fair pay - by staging more industrial action.

At a lively and well-attended meeting last night, members agreed to stage eight days of discontinous industrial action. We are planning to hold mandatory chapel meetings - of indeterminate length - at 8am every day from Thursday, June 12, to Thursday, June 19, inclusive.

The beauty of chapel meetings is that we can take action for as long or short a length of time as we like. We can simply return to work when we decide the meeting's business is over - effectively allowing us flexibility in whether to strike for five minutes, two hours, or days at a time.

While delivering the notice of our next action, we also reiterated that union officials remain willing to get back around the table should management be willing to reopen serious negotiations.

Of course, while our fight continues we hope the solidarity and messages of support from other trade unionists and journalists will also continue.

Please email messages of support to nujyork@gmail.com, sign our petition online at www.petitiononline.com/nujyork and lobby your MP to sign EDM 1639 by logging on to www.writetothem.com. If you have not already donated to our strike fund, please do so by sending cheques made out to NUJ Newsquest York Chapel to NUJ, 5th Floor, Arthur House, Chorlton Street, Manchester, M1 3FH. Thank you.

EDM signatures increasing

Our Early Day Motion (EDM) in Parliament is going from strength to strength, with six MPs now having signed up to the motion supporting our strike and urging Newsquest to enter into meaningful negotiations to tackle low pay and poor conditions.

Those to have backed EDM 1639 so far are: Labour MPs John McDonnell, Kelvin Hopkins, Paul Flynn, Lindsay Hoyle, Lynne Jones and Michael Clapham. If your MP is not on this list, please urge them to sign up by logging on to www.writetothem.com

In the news again

Our campaign for fair pay continues to make headlines in the journalism press. This week, the dispute has been covered in a very positive article on the Hold The Front Page website and also in Press Gazette, right, the industry's weekly trade magazine. Both made clear that despite the five-day strike being over, the chapel is very much determined to continue to press its case.

A day at the races

A team of NUJ members visited York Racecourse on The Press Family Raceday to highlight our campaign for fair pay to racegoers. The Press put its name to the day's racing on Friday, May 30, and we thought it only right to provide a news service about the event's sponsors.

Chapel members and supporters handed out leaflets to punters stressing how US-owned Newsquest is gambling with the future of the city's community newspaper, and the Gazette & Herald, which covers Ryedale. They also gathered signatures on our petition, which is still going strong after we handed in 900 names to managing director Steve Hughes last week.

Celebrities including Nikki Sanderson, pictured right, who played Candice in Coronation Street, took leaflets and spoke to members about our dispute.

Taking a lead in pressuring Newsquest

We reported earlier how former Seahorses singer-songwriter Chris Helme, now lead guitarist of The Yards, signed our petition backing the NUJ campaign for a decent pay rise. We now have a copy of a letter to the managing director Steve Hughes from his bandmate guitarist Chris Farrell, reproduced below. We are urging all our supporters to email Steve at steve.hughes@ycp.co.uk and his boss regional managing director David Coates at david.coates@nne.co.uk to suggest they start paying their journalsts fairly. Here's Chris's eloquent letter:

Dear Steve,

I'm emailing you to express my support for the journalists currently on strike at the Press and concern that a once much valued local paper has been reduced to treating its staff so badly.

As a York resident for over 14 years I have always relied on the journalists working for the Press to keep me informed about what is happening in my community in an informative and relevant way.

As a charity fundraiser and musician I am only too aware that without coverage in the Press the cultural and social life of York would be greatly impoverished. Without sufficient properly paid and committed journalists covering local issues and events you simply cannot produce a paper that should properly be seen as a keystone of our city and as such the relevance (and readership) of the Press will disappear.

As an employer I feel it is demeaning to your staff to offer a 3% pay rise when real inflation is over 4% and food inflation is over 10%. We in the charity sector have recognised that you really do get what you pay for in the end and it is both exploitative and self defeating to expect staff to work in these conditions. As a company that makes a considerable profit off the hard work of your employees I can see no reason why you feel the need to adopt your current position other than sheer greed.

I therefore very much hope you will recognise the legitimacy of your employees position and revise your pay offer, allowing the journalists of the Press to return to what they does best, providing relevant local coverage and comment on all aspects of York life.

Yours sincerely

Chris Farrell

When the strikers went marching in...

We returned to work today with our heads held very high indeed. About 20 strikers gathered in a car park close to Newsquest York's offices just before 9am and marched in to the offices en masse - still united, still strong and still fighting.

Joint Fathers of Chapel Tony Kelly and Sam Southgate immediately presented managing director Steve Hughes with a petition signed by 900 readers and residents demanding fair pay for journalists at The Press and the Gazette & Herald.

This was the inspiring message to members from Tony

We returned to work today not in doom nor gloom, but in a positive, vibrant mood. We have not won our battle yet - it may well take quite a while - but we are already winners because we have shown such a unity of spirit, defiance, commitment and togetherness.

Can any of us have been prouder to be members of the National Union of Journalists than during our brave and concerted action throughout the York chapel’s five-day strike? No.

We might take some knocks in the next few days or weeks, but we have to remember the five days between May 22 and 26 when, as one, we supported each other, worked for each other, looked out for each other and revelled in each other’s determination not to be brow-beaten or bullied or battered

We now have a chapel of strength. We now have a chapel of character. We now have a chapel of purpose.

Those five days have given us that. They have earned respect across the city of York, across the union nationally, across the industry country-wide.

The taboo of taking industrial action has been shattered. There is no need to fear it. Provided we stick together we can embrace the notion of fighting legitimately for our rights and steadfastly pressing our claims for fair pay and better working conditions.

As said before, our stoppage reinforced our status as winners. Now let’s go on to even more memorable
victories.

Making news in cyberspace

Our campaign continues to attract attention and support.

We reported how NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear visited the picket line on Saturday morning. He has written about his experience on his blog He says:

"There's a fantastic spirit about the strike and a determination to win a fair pay deal. I was happy to be able to deliver a show of support for the strikers and importantly pledge cash to them from the union's fighting fund."

Michelle Stanistreet, the NEC member for newspapers and agencies, who visited the picket line on Monday, has also paid testament to the spirit among the strikers on her blog She says:

"We need to keep up the fight for decent pay for journalists on highly profitable local papers. The York chapel is showing us the way. I can empathise with the people I spoke to today who are struggling to pay off student loans and find accommodation in an expensive area. The spirit of determination, unity and fun on the picket line was a lesson for the union as a whole. I was delighted to see the Stand Up For Journalism banner on display – as well resourced, motivated journalists are vital for a community like York. It was great to see that the chapel has the support of many local people – including the councillors and MP John Grogan who turned up on a bank holiday to show their support."

There's also a new article in the newspaper Socialist Worker by Frank Ormston, a local TSSA union rep who visited the picket line a number of times.

And we've had the following messages of support, one from our Business Editor who was sunning himself in warmer climes during the strike:

Feeling part of it
Well done all. The blog is fantastic. I really felt part of it from all this distance away. I know it's hard to believe, but I wished I was there. This is just the start of the battle. Fraternal greetings from paradise.
Ron Godfrey

Support for justice quest
Dear comrades, On behalf of all the 22,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union employed in the South West of England may I extend to you and all your fellow strikers our total support in your dispute to obtain justice for your members. If there is any practical help or support we can provide, please do not hesitate to get in touch, Yours fraternally
David A Millar
South West Regional Secretary, PCS

Chapel's message: this ain't over

A lively chapel meeting at the end of our five-day strike had one message for Newsquest management: this dispute is not over. After taking such a brave and principled stand, we are determined not to let our hard work be for nought. A full chapel meeting next week will discuss how to step up our campaign, and we already have plenty of ideas. But one thing's for sure: with a huge strike fund behind us and the taboo of industrial action utterly shattered, all options are now open.

Marching on the Minster

On the march in York's Parliament Street

Actors, MPs, councillors, lecturers and shoppers got behind our strike on its final day. More than 20 picketers marched on the city's Minster on another glorious day of sunshine in York to round off the first wave of our action for fair pay.

We were buoyed early on by a visit from Selby MP John Grogan, whose constituency includes part of York and is covered by The Press. He had earlier sent us a message of support but today he spoke to strikers and gave us his backing in person.

Then City of York councillor Dave Taylor dropped by to give us his backing. We had earlier visited by his Green Party colleague Andy D'Agorne so we now have 100 per cent of the council's Green group on board.

Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for York Central, Susan Wade Weeks paid another visit to the picket line. She said her daughter, the actress Honeysuckle Weeks, from the TV show Foyle's War, would also be rooting for us.

More celebrety backing came in the shape of Robinson Crusoe. The lead in an upcoming series by American TV company NBC, Philip Winchester, signed our petition and gave us his support. Along with stars such as Sean Bean and Sam Neil, he has been in the city for filming over the last week.

Three NUJ national executive members turned out today - Michelle Stanistreet, Tom Davies and Adam Christie - along with Miles Barter from the Manchester NUJ Branch and our regional organiser Jenny Lennox. They brought with them the branch's banner which we hoisted in front of the building.

The University of York's UCU secretary James Cussens paid us a visit and wished us fraternal greetings, as did a Japanese lecturer in labour relations at York St John University and a trade unionist in his home country.

By noon, we were ready to move off on our march into the city centre. Our demonstration was lively, fun and loud - it surely made an impression on the Bank Holiday shoppers. From Newsquest York's offices in Walmgate, we marched to the Minster and then to Parliament Street.

There we staged an impromptu singalong of our strike song, which saw dozens of members of the public throw money into our bucket. Union members handed out copies of our strike paper The Stress, collected signatures on our petition, and shouted slogans on the megaphone.

From there, we went back to Newsquest York's offices and stood outside chanting our slogan: "What do we want? Fair Pay! When do we want it? Now!" We were certainly loud enough to make our point to the management inside. We rounded off our five-day strike with a chapel meeting and devoured a lunch laid on at a local pub.

Selby MP John Grogan on the picket line

Richard Foster sings his heart out in the city centre

A video of our end-of-strike march and rally

Thanks for 'phenomenal' support

Striking journalists in York wish to thank the thousands of people who have backed them during their five-day walkout.

The NUJ chapel at The Press and Gazette and Herald are striking over a derisory pay-increase offer of 3% - well below inflation, and less than several other papers in Newsquest, the papers' owners.

The journalists have been backed by local politicians of all parties, as well as thousands of local residents and readers of the papers.

Former Press editor Dave Nicholson also backed the strikers, as have many other workers around the city.

Joint Father of Chapel Sam Southgate said: "The support has been phenomenal. Many people have been amazed to learn how poor local journalists are paid, and were shocked to hear that millions of pounds made in York were being sucked out of the local economy by Newsquest and their American owners.

"Donations and messages of goodwill have been flooding in from all over the country, and even as far afield as New York. The support from other employees at The Press, such as advertising staff, and delivery drivers, has also been fantastic.

"The ball is now in Steve Hughes' court - he must decide whether to listen to the people of York and pay their journalists a fair wage, or to continue pandering to the excessive demands of American shareholders."

This is the first strike by journalists at The Press since 1978.

Support for campaign runs deep

Our strike fund is edging steadily towards the £10,000 mark after two significant donations today. We received £100 from Newcastle Branch as well as a £40 donation from a supporter in Tyneside.

Meanwhile, we are on the cusp of smashing through the 1,000-signature barrier with our petition for fair pay. We now have an online version of the petition, so please log on and add your name.

Below are two further messages of support that arrived today:

Lively, imaginative action
To all members on strike at the Press. It was great to meet some of you down on the picket line today. I've been really impressed by the lively and imaginative nature of your strike. This note is just to convey a message of support to you from University of York. Let's hope come round to giving you the pay you deserve! In solidarity,
James Cussens, University of York UCU secretary

Trail-blazing strike
Add our support for your courageous and trail-blazing action.
Gloria McShane, chair, Teesside branch