Skip Navigation | Sheffield IMC | UK IMC | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

UK Indymedia UK Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia

48 Hour Strike Called at Sheffield Newspapers

Sheffield Newspapers NUJ Chapel | 07.02.2011 13:17 | Other Press | Workers' Movements | Sheffield

Sheffield Newspapers NUJ Chapel (workplace branch) has called 48 hours of strike action to take place this Wednesday and Thursday (Feb 9 and 10) to oppose the threat of compulsory redundancies as a result of the company deciding that the centralised page production hub in Sheffield should be cut almost in half, putting 9.5 full-time equivalent jobs at risk.

The hub produces pages for Johnston Press titles in Sheffield, South, West and North Yorkshire, North and Mid Derbyshire and North Notts. (The company introduced a system where 80pc of pages are produced by reporters, newsdesks, sports and features desks using templates and more complicated 'show pages' are done by the hub, who are production journalists from Sheffield joined by colleagues from Chesterfield, Doncaster and Worksop who transferred under TUPE).

The chapel is also very concerned because the company is talking about 'no loss of head count', when most of the vacancies that are potentially open for staff to redeploy to are in fact held by freelances who are employed on month-to-month contracts. The chapel has been campaigning for many months now for the company to offer all freelances a permanent contract. Two of the freelances are trainees doing their NCE qualification, which is a doubly disgraceful situation.

This is also an attack on quality journalism as sport and news-gathering staff who are already struggling to cope have bigger workloads foisted on to them. Parent company Johnston Press, which made pre-tax profits of 26.1 million in the first six months of last year, has made endless cuts to keep shareholders happy and clearly expects workers to pay the price for massive debts that it racked up in a buying spree to extend its regional newspaper empire in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

We are appealing for any support that the wider movement can give us. Attached is a sheet for solidarity collections. We will have a hardship fund as members don't receive strike pay from the national union, although it will contribute to the fund. Please make any cheques payable to South Yorkshire NUJ and send to Sheffield Newspapers Dispute c/o NUJ, 5th Floor Arthur House, Chorlton Street, Manchester M1 3FH. Thanks.

Union officials will be in talks with management tomorrow, Tuesday, morning and will then be reporting back to the chapel at lunchtime. If the situation changes as a result, we'll be letting people know that as soon as possible.

Otherwise, we'll be picketing the offices at York Street off High Street in the city centre (a minute's walk from the Cathedral tram stop) from probably about 6am until mid-morning. It'd be great to see anyone who wants to support us.

Email  sheffieldnewspapersnuj@hotmail.co.uk or contact Chris Morley at the NUJ Manchester office  chrism@nuj.org.uk to send messages of support or to find out further information.

Sheffield Newspapers NUJ Chapel
- e-mail: sheffieldnewspapersnuj@hotmail.co.uk

Additions

Latest! Sheffield NUJ action suspended as jobs saved

08.02.2011 21:59

Sheffield Newspapers NUJ Chapel voted today to suspend planned action tomorrow, Wednesday Feb 9, and Thursday after management backed off from making compulsory redundancies.

Although the firm, part of Johnston Press, has gone ahead with streamlining the regional page production hub based in Sheffield by cutting 9.5 FTE posts, management found jobs for everyone who wanted to stay and in some cases had to create new roles especially. Four staff decided that they still wanted to take voluntary redundancy, however.

Also, the company has agreed that other editorial vacancies that had been filled by staff who were only on month-to-month freelance contracts will now be filled by staff given permanent contracts. The freelances will be in prime position to get the permanent contracts after an interview process as the posts have already been advertised internally. This is an issue the chapel has been campaigning on for months.

We know that this deal would never had been achieved had the chapel not stood united and determined and willing to take action to defend jobs and quality journalism. Thanks to everyone who has offered support and solidarity or intended to come to visit our picket lines. Unity is strength!

Sheffield NUJ


Comments

Hide the following comment

Good on you, chaps.

08.02.2011 12:32

Let's see some support for them!

Fingerbob


Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Sheffield Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Sheffield [navigation.actions2016]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2015]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2014]

NATO 2014

Sheffield Actions 2013

G8 2013

Sheffield Actions 2012

Workfare

Sheffield Actions 2011

2011 Census Resistance
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Occupy Everywhere

Sheffield Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

Sheffield Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

Sheffield Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

Sheffield Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

Sheffield Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

Sheffield Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

Sheffield Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

Sheffield Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech