'Legal threat forced Express jobs climbdown'

The NUJ says a threat of legal action by the union has forced Express Newspapers to cut the number of jobs it wants to axe.
The union says it told Express Newspapers that the numbers involved required workers to be consulted for three months rather than 30 days and the company responded by reducing planned redundancies in London and Glasgow from 106 to 75. This would lower the number of journalists' jobs being cut from 80 to 57.
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ deputy general secretary, is a former Express Newspapers union rep and has attended talks with the company this week.
She said: "The reduction in job cuts was only announced after the NUJ had warned the company that they were not following the right procedure. While we welcome the reduced numbers we still don't know how the papers can be produced with the few people who will be left. We want to see some proper plans and we want guarantees that there will be no compulsory redundancies."
So far, the NUJ says, 16 people in London have volunteered for redundancies, five in Glasgow and one in Preston.