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“Avalanche” of job losses


M


embers at Bullivant have sent a message of thanks to all branches who contributed to


their hardship fund while they took four days strike action. Te journalists working on the Midland’s weeklies and websites took the action in response to the company’s redundancy plans, new working practices, and aſter months of journalists being underpaid. Messages of solidarity flooded in for the NUJ members, including support from local MPs, councillors, and well-wishers who visited the socially-


distanced picket line. Bullivant Media Limited placed


Action


Link up with local NUJ workplace chapels and offer support •


Lobby your MPs to call for an extension of the Covid job retention scheme •


Brief your local MPs on the NUJ’s News Recovery Plan and seek their backing: htps://www.nuj.org.uk/documents/ from-health-crisis-to-good-news/


adverts in its newspapers for journalists to take on strike-breaking shiſts in what Séamus Dooley, NUJ assistant general secretary, called “a crass atempt by the company to undermine industrial action by its own workers”. Company boss Chris Bullivant Senior visited the picket line in his Bentley and distributed sandwiches, which were then donated to Acts of Kindness, the local food bank. Bullivant Media Limited NUJ chapel said they had been buoyed by the countless gestures of support from readers, MPs, fellow journalists and trade unionists, councillors and all the activity on social media: “Te public share our concerns about the damage to professional journalism. Tey also expressed their outrage over working journalists paid close to the minimum wage not receiving their full salaries for months, and the redundancies.” Talks with between the management and NUJ were ongoing as NUJBranch went


to press. Te redundancies are just a number of the thousands the NUJ is dealing with across all sectors of the industry. Te JPIMedia group chapel has called on its employer not


to make compulsory redundancies in the latest restructuring which will result in the loss of up to 30 editorial posts. Te company, which owns Te Scotsman, Yorkshire Post and Newsleter, also announced it was making a further atempt to sell the newspaper group. Te Norwich- based Archant group, owner of the 150-year-old Eastern Daily Press, is also up for sale.


Te NUJ is dealing with


redundancies throughout the Reach group, at Newsquest, Tindle, on the Evening Standard, Te Guardian and at the BBC. It is also fighting a handful of redundancies at Iran International designed, as far as the NUJ is concerned, to target two NUJ reps, which may lead to a tribunal claim for interim relief. Te Welsh Parliament’s Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Commitee warned that the regional media faced “an avalanche” of redundancies if the UK government’s job retention scheme was ended in October. It called for the scheme to be extended and for the UK government to fill BBC Cymru Wales’ £8.5 funding gap for the next two financial years. Te NUJ’s Welsh Executive Council


welcomed these proposals but said the report on the impact of Covid-19 on the Welsh media should have been bolder.


CAMPAIGN


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