Journalists at the Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post and Leeds Weekly News are balloting for strike action to defend their jobs.
Management is attempting to sack 18 journalists - 10 per cent of the editorial workforce - in order to maintain its profits. The company has paid out hundreds of millions of pounds in dividends and bonuses to shareholders and directors, while at the same time building up debts of £450m to expand.
With the arrival of the credit crunch and a fall in advertising revenue they are demanding that we pay for their mismanagement with our jobs.
They also refuse to offer the level of redundancy settlement offered by them in other centres.
They have steadily reduced the quality of our newspapers by a long-term refusal to fill vacancies, and other cost-cutting measures. They have transferred the printing of the Yorkshire Evening Post out of Leeds, ending more than a century of tradition.
They are appealing to our readers and others in Yorkshire to support our struggle to defend jobs and maintain the quality of our campaigning newspapers.
http://ypchapel.wordpress.com/
With the arrival of the credit crunch and a fall in advertising revenue they are demanding that we pay for their mismanagement with our jobs.
They also refuse to offer the level of redundancy settlement offered by them in other centres.
They have steadily reduced the quality of our newspapers by a long-term refusal to fill vacancies, and other cost-cutting measures. They have transferred the printing of the Yorkshire Evening Post out of Leeds, ending more than a century of tradition.
They are appealing to our readers and others in Yorkshire to support our struggle to defend jobs and maintain the quality of our campaigning newspapers.
http://ypchapel.wordpress.com/ 
Comments
Hide the following 7 comments
Why should we care
12.02.2009 15:30
parasites
quality?
12.02.2009 17:33
That is a really sick claim. They're crap, advertising-funded instruments of social control. The most interesting thing about them is they burn quite nicely.
anon
so...
12.02.2009 19:12
If workers go on strike then you should support them, end of story. It doesn't require you to agree with the products of the companies they work for.
As for the journalists not supporting other's in strike, thats shit but no reason not to support them. If they can win and especially if thats helped by the mutual aid and solidarity of other workers then they're going to be in a better position to dictate terms in the workplace and perhaps affect the editorial attitude towards workers' struggles in the future.
as a mate of mine once said: "We have to stand together, cos there's fuck all else"
...what?
How to change the world
12.02.2009 19:51
or
ii) get out and demostrate your solidarity with workers in struggle.
I know which one I'd be doing .
solidarity
how to change the world option 3
13.02.2009 02:28
Last time the workers at YP/YEP called a half-day strike, they sent out calls for solidarity on several email lists for Leeds-based left/radical groups. Me and a few others went down to show our support at the advertised picket. There was no picket, it turned out that they'd canceled it and forgotten to tell anyone. Good communication, workers! Ask for solidarity when you want it, then leave your comrades standing in the rain because you can't be bothered to send out another email.
So, option 3: get over your 19th century notions of class, stop fetishising industrial production, stop consuming shite, develop and implement a critique of social relations based on community self-reliance and rejection of the enclosure of knowledge as practiced in the corporate media.
I know which I'll be doing.
Happy Snapper
wapping
13.02.2009 17:08
See PostScript: Anarcho-punk, the ALF and the miners’ strike - a cautionary tale from the 1980s:
Also see:
Happy Snapper, it may be annoying to turn up at a picket only to find that it’s been called off, but it’s not something unique to the YP dispute is it? I’ve lost count of the amount of times i’ve turned up at anarcho events only to find its been cancelled, no one was around to open up the social centre or whatever.
And Who is ‘fetishising industrial production, stop consuming shite’???
A Body
No Great fan but...
14.02.2009 00:42
Balance