Journalists at Johnston Press in Leeds hold strike ballot over forced redundancies

Journalists in Leeds are to be balloted for strike action after Johnston Press announced three compulsory redundancies and called for fifteen more volunteers to leave the company, the NUJ said today. The cuts affect the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post.
The union says today’s proposals from the company would mean three photographers being made compulsorily redundant and claim management is also seeking six job cuts from Yorkshire Post editorial, six from Yorkshire Evening Post as well as three picture technicians who serve both papers.
A joint chapel statement says: “The new round of job losses are not genuine redundancies within the definition of the term. Redundancy occurs when there is no longer any work for a person to do. In our case the work is still there. The company simply wishes to save the wages of some of the people doing it, and pass their workload on to colleagues who are left."
The chapel, which meets tomorrow, has a long-standing policy of balloting for strike action if any member is threatened with compulsory redundancy. They want to improve any settlement terms, and stop the compulsory element of the job losses, the NUJ says.