04 Informed


Update Why action is needed at Reach


Te industrial action threatened by members working for Reach is about pay, but it is not just about money. Yes, in the present economic climate, with inflation on the rampage, energy prices due to rocket and most other costs on the rise, a 3 per cent increase is not going to cut it. As Chris Morley, NUJ Reach national co-ordinator, says: “Given the amazing work our members are doing, including the heroics they performed during the pandemic as key workers, the company’s final offer is an insult.” It’s not that Reach can’t afford it. Te company’s 2021 full year results indicate a £24m rise in cash balances with operating profits of more than £146m. Te pay package of its chief executive, Jim Mullen, was £4m last year – which would pay for 117 trainee journalists. At the company’s annual general meeting in May, a group of union officials and reps took the CEO and Reach’s board to task over his remuneration deal. A leter handed out to shareholders said: “We think there is something very wrong when the remuneration of the


NUJ officials and reps at the Reach AGM


chief executive has gone from a ratio of 43:1 of the lowest percentile employees in 2019 to 117:1 in 2021. During that time the Reach share price has doubled – but the CEO’s pay package has rocketed by 600 per cent plus. We don’t mind reward for success, but it should cut both ways. So, if the board argue this is success, then why is it trying to fob off incredibly hard-working employees with a woeful pay increase when we are experiencing runaway inflation at its worst for 30 years?” Te members have had enough.


Tey have shown themselves ultra flexible, adapting at very short notice to the company’s scramble to collect


the millions of extra digital page views, their working conditions have been completely changed as Reach shut offices and expected many to work from home. Tis made the company annual savings of £8m, with their staff leſt to pick up the heating bills and they have suffered the stress of the Accelerating Personal Development pilot scheme which monitors writers’ page views. When times have been financially


tough in the past, members have tightened their belts. But they can’t anymore. Tat is why the chapels turned down the 3 per cent offer. Since then, the threat of action has galvanised non- union staff to join the NUJ to get their views represented. One member told the union they “needed a beter deal to feed their children”. Chris Morley said: “We had a further meeting with Reach management at their behest, together with ACAS, the arbitrator, but they were unable to revise their offer to reflect what their journalists deserve. Tis was a wasted opportunity to make progress as we now head to a ballot for industrial action of all our members in Reach.”


‘Got to keep the pay down, PM? Try telling this lot!’


It was vintage campaigning journalism. Te Daily Mirror was calling out the fat cat bosses “raking in up to 86 times the wages of their average workers”. “While millions of workers struggle with the cost of living,” it said, “Britain’s’ fat cat bosses have never had it so good.” Tere was rail chief, Andrew Haines, making more than 20 times the amount


of one of his guards, and last year BT group chief executive, Phillip Jansen, earned 97 times more than his lower-paid staff. But there was one fat cat missing, pointed out the NUJ Reach group chapel, saying:


“Te hypocrisy between the Mirror’s editorial line and Reach plc’s corporate policy is breath-taking when our own chief executive, Jim Mullen, received a £4m-plus pay package worth 104 times that of the average Reach worker. “Reach must practice what it preaches and get round the table to negotiate a beter pay package that will start to level up the obscene pay inequalities within the company to decent and respectful levels.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12