Staff at Herald set for second walk-out

Published on Sunday 22 July 2007 00:09

JOURNALISTS at The Herald are expected to stage a second strike this week in protest at management cutbacks.

The one-day walk-out follows a strike this weekend which hit production of the Herald, Evening Times and Sunday Herald. On Friday a piper led 200 staff from the headquarters in Renfield Street, Glasgow, to a mass meeting at nearby Glasgow Caledonian University.

Paul Holleran, regional organiser of the National Union of Journalists, said more than 200 joined the strike, leaving just a handful behind to produce the newspapers. The management were able to use other titles in the Newsquest group, together with agencies, to ensure the papers hit the streets.

Holleran said feelings were running high and that the size of the walk-out would have surprised the management.

"Hopefully, they will see sense. I think they thought there would not be much of a response [to the strike call]," he said.

At the mass meeting, messages of support were read out to staff from union shop stewards, other Newsquest staff and politicians.

The long-running dispute came to a head when six staff were selected for redundancy. Two volunteered and three others were redeployed after the union instigated legal proceedings. But the remaining employee - a female sub-editor who also has a disability - was made compulsorily redundant. The union believes that allowing this would set a precedent for further compulsory redundancies. It is now pursuing a sex and disability discrimination case against the company.

No further talks are planned with management, which is understood to have de-recognised the union in pursuit of 3m of cuts.

Managing director Tim Blott - whose father, Eric, was a full-time NUJ official - has declined to comment.