NUJ members at Reach titles will be balloted over strike action after rejecting a 3% pay offer.
It follows months of talks over what the NUJ says would be a “fair and decent” pay award for staff.
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said the company – whose titles include the Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo (office pictured above) – had “failed to recognise the significant contribution of journalists” and increase their final offer of 3% or £750 for employees.
The Reach NUJ Group chapel said it had “overwhelmingly” rejected the pay offer and has told Reach of its intention to ballot for strike action.
The NUJ said that despite a £24m rise in cash balances in 2021 and operating profits of over £146m, chief executive Jim Mullen’s £4m pay package was 107 times the pay of the average Reach employee.
Chris Morley, NUJ Reach national co-ordinator, said: “Members are incredibly disappointed that we have now reached this point in the road where the company is still failing to acknowledge the struggle they are up against in a any meaningful way.
“They have performed heroics during the pandemic as key workers. Yet most have had the burden of soaring energy costs transferred on to their shoulders via the company’s policy of home working from which Reach will make millions of pounds’ worth of annual savings from closing most of the group’s offices – with virtually no financial help to do so.”
He added that Reach’s board appeared “totally remote from what is happening on the ground”, adding: “What is the point of a media company that gives as the purpose of its titles ‘to each serve their communities with integrity and passion’ if it fails to look after its own staff?”
A Reach spokesperson told Prolific North: “Our people are vital to Reach’s continued success and we greatly value our relationships with our journalists.
“Our priority must be to protect jobs by ensuring the Group has a sustainable future in the face of unprecedented newsprint cost inflation and an uncertain economic backdrop.”
