By Julia Armstrong, MoC Sheffield Star

Journalists working on three of the biggest regional newspaper groups in Britain were called to an emergency union meeting to discuss the fightback against major attacks on jobs and pay.

National Union of Journalists general secretary Jeremy Dear said that Jon Slattery, who covered the industry for 23 years at Press Gazette, said in his blog that the news of title closures and job losses announced meant that last week must rank as one of the bleakest for the British press.

Hundreds of jobs have been cut or are under threat, newsrooms are being merged, printing presses and district offices closed and editions axed. Particularly hard hit are the Trinity Mirror, Newsquest and Johnston Press groups who were all well represented at the meeting.

At Trinity Mirror, which has cut more than 218 jobs and shut 15 offices in the past six months the boss Sly Bailey has written to all staff to announce a pay freeze and other groups like Johnston Press are expected to follow suit.

This is not restricted to the regional press either; The Independent is moving into the Daily Mail building, Haymarketmagazines group is making cuts and what has happened at ITV local news centres has been brutal in its effects.

Newspaper companies are still massively profitable; the Johnston Press profit operating margin, where shares have plunged to 7p, is 29% as against Tesco’s 5.9%. Jeremy Dear said advertising revenues are falling but the companies have racked up massive debts from acquisitions and given profits to bosses and shareholders, rather than making sure they had cash set aside to cushion them in the leaner years.

He put forward a motion that was unanimously accepted, arguing for co-ordinated industrial action at affected titles against job cuts and pay freezes, building for a national day of action, protests at industry events, campaigns involving the public on the importance of the local media in local democracy and a political campaign on newspaper ownership and an exposure of management greed and incompetence.

Reps at the conference said there are signs that despondency among their members now has the potential to turn into a fight. Already at Trinity Mirror titles in Newcastle, NUJ members voted overwhelmingly for action to contest 23 job losses and the closure of two offices.

In Sheffield, a half-day action earlier in the year to oppose five compulsory redundancies and a trawl for volunteers plus the closure of two district offices was rock solid and at the Yorkshire Post/Evening Post in Leeds, chapel members are getting ready to ballot as they have been told to expect compulsory redundancies within weeks.

In Liverpool, where jobs and editions are under threat in a newsroom merger of the Post and Echo, readers gave one of the editors a rough ride when he appeared on a local radio station.

This sort of public anger can cut against the idea that journalists are unpopular and that no-one will support our campaigns for newspapers that really serve their communities, not the advertisers and shareholders.

Another conference has been called for Saturday January 24 2008. NUJ activists from all affected sectors need to make the date a priority if we are to push this campaign forward.

“NUJ to protest over regionals’ job cuts” - Media Guardian.

“NUJ to take co-ordinated action over local newspaper cuts” - journalism.co.uk

“Union to stage day of action over job cutbacks” - holdthefrontpage.co.uk

“NUJ plans fight-back against job cuts and reveals “500 editorial posts lost since June” - jonslattery.blogspot.com

“Local paper journalists stand up against job cuts” - nuj.org.uk

“NUJ mulls legal challenge as 500 regional jobs axed” - pressgazette.co.uk

Posted by NUJ Left