13/05/2008

Officials from the National Union of Journalists are to brief MPs at Westminster tomorrow on proposed job cuts at the Herald group of newspapers - the fourth round of redundancies in five years, with some 20 editorial posts facing the axe and a further 20 in non-editorial.

The NUJ will seek to argue that Scottish jobs are being lost to keep returns high for the owners’ US shareholders and that the plurality of debate in Scotland is at risk should content in the papers be reduced - in terms of both quantity and quality. The group comprises The Herald, the Sunday Herald, the Evening Times and a magazines division.

Says a NUJ insider: “While Tim Blott, the managing director, claims that there has been ‘substantial investment’ in Scotland, the actual spending on a new ‘state-of-the-art’ computer system for three newspapers and the magazine division, combined, is just £900,000. It is still not complete, although Blott promised it would be operational by last September.
 
“The system was funded by cuts in the first place, and was not the result on ‘new’ investment.”

He continued: “Investment in a new line at the Cambuslang printing plant is to allow production of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday - the two major outside contracts - and the publication of a number of [owner,] Newsquest's north of England papers. It has little benefit for the Herald stable. It has, however, allowed Newsquest to cut its printing staff down south.
 
“Our text library service has already been outsourced to the Mitchell Library and staff are reporting gaps in its coverage.
 
“Our Edinburgh staff has only just been found a new office five months after the lease expired on the former premises. The 14 journalists who work out of Edinburgh, like the union, are convinced they were made homeless as a deliberate cost-cutting measure.”
 
It is understood that, so far, only a handful of staff have confirmed they wish to take voluntary redundancy.

Last Wednesday, a mass meeting of NUJ members at the papers warned of industrial action should management begin seeking compulsory redundancies.

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