NUJ - fighting to save jobs petition

As Craig McGinty put in his recent appraisal of the NUJ boycott of Israel, the union really needs to concentrate on defending the rights of members, which is more than enough of a challenge.

This blog has reported a number of instances of redundancies of journalists this year, the last being the possible redundancies at the Manchester Evening News (22nd April) .

With all stories the theme has been the pressure from online media, declining sales spend and the need to re-employ budget to other media to ensure that the organisation can compete.

It is unfortunate but understandable.

The NUJ has illustrated that the reasons for redundancy are not so necessary in each case.

The Gannett/Newsquest group is cutting jobs despite record profits and assurances they provided to the Competition Commission hearing in 2003 on the transfer of The Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times to not cut numbers.

• Newsquest has a return on investment of over 35% in the last 3 years. This is more than double the average company performance in the UK (14.8%).

• Profits from the three titles more than doubled last year to almost £20 million.

• Parent company Gannett has a current operating revenue of $8033 million.

The reward for journalists: Chief Executive Tim Blott is demanding up to £3million savings from staff.

The NUJ is campaigning for its members and readers, if you feel this is of interest please sign the petition.