Strikes start at Reach after talks stall

More than 1150 journalists will take part in one of the most significant walkouts across the company’s titles including The Mirror, Express, Daily Record, Sunday Mail, Western Mail and Irish Star, the Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo, Bristol Post, Birmingham Mail, The Journal, South Wales Evening Post and the Live websites.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: “We accepted the company’s invitation to talks brokered by ACAS, but ultimately, the lack of willingness on the part of Reach chief executive Jim Mullen to budge an inch meant the negotiations were doomed to failure.

“This is a business with cash in the bank, a business that is happy to spend £7m on lavish pay packages for its top two executives, a business that is about to hand over a further £4m to shareholders.

“Yet is also a business that believes its hard-working journalists deserve a whopping real-terms pay cut, and refuses to come to an agreement on pay that will ensure our members can keep themselves and their families afloat this winter.

“It’s shameful that a media company that positions itself as a voice for communities around the UK and Ireland, with many titles that claim to be an ally of working people, would choose to treat its own staff so shabbily.”

NUJ Daily Record/Sunday Mail chapel said: “Reach plc is a highly profitable company which made £143m last year, handed its two most senior executives a combined pay package of more than £7m, amassed a cash reserve of around £65m and is now paying its shareholders dividends of £14m.

“Reach titles have reported on industrial disputes around the country, rightly urging employers to offer workers a fair deal in the face of the cost-of-living crisis. The chief executive’s decision to kibosh any chance of a sensible deal means we have no option but to take strike action.”

A member involved in the strike added: “For years now, journalists have been vastly underpaid, especially when considering the qualifications and skills we need, the pressure and abuse we face and the vital service we provide to inform, entertain and hold the powerful to account.

“Without the work of journalists at Reach in recent months, they’d have been no Partygate scandal broken, no agenda-leading journalism on climate change and no light in the darkness provided by our local newspapers in cities such as Liverpool recently hit by tragedy. It is time to reflect our service in our pay packets, not just in weekly emails with empty words.”

Following two days of negotiations over the bank holiday weekend, brokered by ACAS the arbitration service, talks between the NUJ and Reach broke down with no deal. NUJ reps unanimously passed a vote of no confidence in the chief executive, Jim Mullen, added an extra strike day to their planned industrial action and extended the work to rule, as the talks failed to resolve the dispute.

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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