As trade unionists met in London this evening to help build for the Jobs, Education, Peace demo at Labour party conference on Sunday 27 September, father of the NUJ chapel at Express Newspapers, Steve Usher, sent this message of support:

Surviving NUJ members at the Express titles are currently going through yet another redundancy exercise.

Richard Desmond’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for journalistic blood demands the sacrifice of a further 96 London jobs from a total of 600 across the Daily Express, Daily Star, Sunday Express, Daily Star Sunday and their associated magazines.

The Glasgow office is to lose a quarter of its staff – that is 10 from just 40 serving four national titles.

Initial proposals, full of words like “eliminate” and “review”, indicate that no one is safe. Merging desks between titles and copy-sharing are strong possibilities.

A nine-day fortnight is to be brought in to replace the current four-day week. These are of course four-night weeks as these 10-hour shifts go on until the early hours of the following day.

District reporters look set to be consigned to the history books, replaced by agency copy. Management here have recently been successful in engaging outside suppliers of words and pictures in talks about renewed contracts – where they have agreed to cut their prices by as much as 16%.

The 1 January pay review for this year was postponed until 1 June. Then it was postponed completely. On the day we were due to commence pay negotiations for 2010, the company announced its latest cull.

Daily Express Editor Peter Hill told me in an email: “No one wants to see job cuts but survival is the issue now. Revenues from circulation and advertising are drastically down and there is no prospect of any improvement. The bills have to be paid. The company has to be viable.”

No mention there about the journalistic reputation and credibility of the titles having to survive. No thought of restoring the Daily Express to its former glories.

What has happened to Desmond’s plan to overtake the journalistic juggernaut that is the Daily Mail? He is not going to overtake anyone while he reduces the Daily Express to a title whose staff could easily fit inside a Smart car.

The NUJ chapel has warned management before that it views these constant cuts with anger. We believe they herald the demise of the Daily Express and Sunday Express as national titles. But still the redundancy exercises come – and they are getting closer together.

Redundancy exercises have become as regular as Daily Express splashes on the McCanns, or Jordan and Peter Andre front pages in the Daily Star.

When Desmond bought the Express titles in 2001 I think he thought he was buying Express Dairies as he has been milking us ever since. He has paid himself millions in both salary and pension and then says the company is fighting for survival. I wonder why.

You are demanding a new direction tonight. NUJ members at the Express and Daily Star are desperate for management to take a new direction too – away from badly-managed decline and towards meaningful investment in quality journalism and quality titles.

See you in Brighton.

Posted by Rich Simcox

Tags: cuts, Express, job cuts, journalism, protest, solidarity, Steve Usher