Colleagues, the fight is absolutley on to stop the blood-letting at the Herald Group newspapers from the obscene profiteering of Newsquest and their fat-cat American owners ... Read the text of the online petition below and sign the petition ...
We call on Gannett/Newsquest to abide by the assurances they provided to the Competition Commission hearing in 2003 on the transfer of The Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times and stop cutting jobs in these titles.
Those assurances included their stated intention to maintain the quality and level of coverage of Scottish issues and opinions.
For the third year in a row profits have increased at Newsquest (Herald & Times) For the third year in row management have demanded job cuts across the board.
The Herald's position as a national newspaper is seriously under threat. The Sunday Herald's role as an award-winning quality Sunday title is at risk.
The ability of Evening Times journalists to sustain the high profile campaigning identity of the paper is being dramatically undermined.
The real danger to these prestigious Scottish titles comes directly from Newsquest's demand for job cuts in each of the last three years. Their profitable return on investment has been over 35% during this period. This is more than double the average company performance in the UK (14.8%).
Profits from the three titles more than doubled last year to almost £20million. Parent company Gannett has a current operating revenue of $8033 million. Now Chief Executive Tim Blott is demanding up to £3million savings from staff.
Serious health and safety issues (including stress and RSI) have been raised with management following previous redundancies and lack of investment. The future of these titles is not safe in the hands of this US owned corporate giant, despite assurances given to the DTI (Competition Commission) at the time of takeover.
This latest action smacks of asset-stripping driven by corporate greed. The Scottish public and civic society should stand up for these newspapers, which are much more important to this country than aspirations and demands of Newsquest shareholders.
We need your support to protect titles which are an essential part of Scottish cultural, political and civic life. Please write to the company expressing your concerns and sign this petition which can be found here ...
Please ask all of your family, friends and colleagues to sign up too ... Quality journalism is not safe in the hands of Newsquest/Gannett.
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