AROUND 20 journalists at the Daily Record and Sunday Mail are expected to be told today they have been chosen for compulsory redundancy, as part of a bid to cut 70 posts from the two titles.
While around 30 applications for voluntary redundancy have been received by publishers, Trinity Mirror, the threat of compulsory redundancies resulted in strike action at the weekend by members of the National Union of Journalists, with a repeat scheduled for Friday, from midnight.
The 70 job cuts – almost a third of workforce – are part of a merged production and were announced in February. In between the 24-hour walkouts, staff are working to rule.
“We don’t know the number for certain, it could be as many as 40, but we understand it is to be closer to 20-odd,” says NUJ Scottish Organiser, Paul Holleran.
“If it goes ahead, we will be applying all the pressure we can to persuade them to avoid going down this Draconian route: industrial action, legal action and political pressure.
“As for any co-operation between us and the management in terms of implementing a new editorial production system, it will be ‘dead in the water’.
“We are willing to co-operate with any newspaper management when it’s about voluntary redundancies – we recognise these are difficult times for newspapers – but not compulsory. What we are we saying to The Scotsman, for instance, we are to the Daily Record.”
More news expected later today…
